Character Analysis Archive

Reddit Post: [reddit]

Author: u/Genprey

Previous: Kanagi and the Pursuit of Justice

Related reading: Mitama and Momento Mori

Getting back on track with the primary cast, we have our child of the wild, Felicia. Most of this section will actually be a bit of an analysis on Felicia's character, primarily comparing her to, err...cows, as funny as that might initially seem.

The most striking part about Felicia is likely her resemblance and liking to cows. This is very convenient, as actually live across the street from a cow farm and have had a chance to learn a lot about them, both from the owners of the farm and from observing them from my window. Cows are very emotional animals, being known to hold grudges, mourn, fall into depression, and show affection, even to humans they grow accustomed to. In particular, cows have been observed as mourning the death or separation of their loved ones, and although they are unable to produce tears to cry, they may let out distressed noises until they grow exhausted and fall asleep. For a bit of perspective, I've had a chance to witness a mother cow grieve after birthing a calf who didn't make it long after it's mother's parturition. The entire scene is really depressing, and as my neighbor explained, they let the mother have alone time with her deceased calf before going off to bury it. Afterwards, the mother cow wandered all around the field calling to her child and even sniffing other calf, as if she were verifying if they were her own.

At the time, I had gotten off the bus from school and saw my parents talking with the neighbor, who was explaining to us that the mother cow would likely continue bellowing until she eventually would succumb to exhaustion and fall asleep. This would continue on for almost 2 days, and while most cows spend half the day chilling, but only a few hours sleeping, my neighbor noticed the mother cow developed irregular sleeping habits until the end of that week.

The tell for a cow's mood are their eyes, with the amount of whites being visible corresponding to how they feel, less being positive and more being negative.

If me spending 3 paragraphs talking about cows wasn't strange enough, I'm now also going to break convention by bringing up Felicia's Doppel early on into her section (as I feel it transitions best from the cow analysis). This Doppel is Beatrice, and it is described as such:

The master of this emotion falls into a deep sleep when this Doppel appears, and doesn’t lay eyes upon anything it learns. While its master is asleep, her Doppel cries tears of mud from its vacant eye, covering up and re-painting everything inconvenient to her. This Doppel is likely to awaken when its master requires the power to smash reality to pieces.

While we were originally led to believe that Felicia's parents were killed by a witch, it is actually revealed that they were originally killed in a fire that started resulting from a prank she played on her mother while cooking. While distressed, Felicia would make a vague wish to Kyubey to make it so that accident "didn't happen", but rather than revert the event, it, instead, just changed the memories of Felicia for her to believe that her parents were killed by a witch. This delusion is alluded to by Beatrice, who is stated to be released when Felicia is about to face reality and cover-up/avert its eyes from any painful truths.

As mentioned earlier, cows are very emotional animals that are prone to mourning deeply for the departure of their loved ones. Mother cows, in particular, take a long time to accept that their offspring are gone, wandering and calling out to their baby until they eventually grow too exhausted to do so any longer.

During Mitama's Special Training featuring Felicia, Shadow Felicia shows normal Felicia a box with many locks, stating that only she (our Felicia) has the right to see what's inside. Shadow Felicia pressures her to open the box, but as Felicia struggles, she notices that her other self has "gunk" dripping from her eye. This might be nothing more than a coincidence, but there's something I noticed in their conversation:

Beatrice: "Hurry and open it! You don't even need a key, you can just lift up the lid. Easy peasy

This shows us that the locks on the box actually serve no purpose, but the use of the word "lid" is similar to "eyelid". This is even more suspicious when you compare the act of opening a box with opening one's eyes, implying that Shadow Felicia was trying to get Felicia to see the truth of what happened to her parents.

In the next scene, Felicia flashes back to the moment immediately after her argument with Tsuruno, where Yachiyo states that "ignorance is bliss", which directly refers to Yachiyo considering replacing the popsicle Felicia had taken from Tsuruno, but indirectly refers to Felicia's wish. Remembering Tsuruno stating that replacing her popsicle would not make her feel better/make her angrier, Felicia eventually comes to the conclusion that she isn't ready for the truth and decides not to open up the box.

While it is important for one to face the truth, there are times where it's better for someone to be ignorant of a truth if doing so would have extreme, negative effects. Felicia is and most certainly acts like a child, being extra prone to outbursts and lacking the ability to properly cope when she is upset. We saw how extreme she gets over things that are ultimately trivial, so imagine how learning the truth about her parents' deaths before maturing and fully developing a relationship with those who who are able to help her handle high amounts of stress.

This mini-episode ends with Felicia waking up in Mitama's office, having passed out and manifesting her doppel by the time Yachiyo and Iroha found her. As stated in Beatrice's description, Felicia coming close to learning of the truth of her parents was a catalyst to her Doppel's awakening. The act of sleeping is linked with grieving, and be it after the loss of a loved one or having an awful summoning session getting spooked by Konoha for the millionth time, it's healthy to "sleep it off". Sleeping basically turns off our bodies and allows us to enter "recovery mode", but also results from a good crying session thanks to the large amount of oxytocin being released in our body. It is during this moment where we temporary forget our troubles and enter a more relaxed state.

Beatrice is likely a reference to Beatrice Cenci. Beatrice is known as a young noblewoman who murdered her father, Francesco Cenci after he was unjustly freed from prison after being guilty of several offenses, including abuse and sexual offenses. Upset over their father being released, Beatrice, her stepmother, and her sister would ambush Francesco, bludgeoning him with a blunt object and pushing his body off a bridge in a way that made his death appear accidental. Beatrice and the remainder of her family/close friends would work to keep this cover-up going, including Beatrice's lover who was killed after not revealing the truth while being tortured. Eventually, police discovered what really occurred and Beatrice's eldest brother was executed via mazzatello, while she and her mother were beheaded.

Both Felicia and Beatrice (both her doppel and the actual person) wield(ed) blunt objects against their targets. Such weapons are known to cause concussions, which can lead to amnesia. This matches Felicia's ability to cause her targets to lose their memory, although rather forcefully in this case. Likewise, Beatrice's family, similar to Felicia's wish hiding the truth of her parents' deaths, dedicated themselves to obscuring the truth of their killing of Francesco.

As a side-note, Sculptor Harriett Hosmer crafted a statue of Beatrice, depicting her as if she were falling asleep.

Beatrice, the Doppel, manifests from Felicia's bellybutton, taking the form of an umbilical cord. Umbilical cords are important for delivering nutrients to a fetus, but given Felicia's theme around sleep, we can probably reference to the fact that dreaming about umbilical cords tends to represent one's attachment to a problem, mostly in relation to a family member.

Earlier, I mentioned that a cow's mood can be seen by looking at their eyes, and while Beatrice has no eye in its socket, it being a major part of its form is likely a reference to this. Beatrice is said to use mud to cover up everything it deems as "inconvenient", however, mud is actually very dangerous to calf, who may get stuck in it or sick/cold.

Ending on a happy note, cows love to be pet and, in turn, show affection by licking. Felicia can, thus, be said to have been showing affection after getting a good taste of Yachiyo's finger.

Up next is The Bravado of Tsuruno.