But before we traumatize ourselves with the realities of war, let’s get the goofy stuff out of the way. I say that in jest, of course. The goofy stuff, i.e. the kids messing around at school, is just as important — if not more important — than the all-too-serious flashback we’re about to get.
Since we reintroduced the family and Loid’s colleagues last week, it’s time to reintroduce Anya’s friends this week. Becky, Damian, and Damian’s flunkies thus make their triumphant return. Personally, I think Becky’s hilarious, and it’s so silly to me that some people tried to paint her affinity for Loid as problematic. Kids have innocent crushes all the time. It’s up to the adults not to be weird, and Loid clearly isn’t a weirdo. As for Damian and his flunkies, eh. I’m pretty apathetic to them. But there is one thing that bugs me: I hate the idea of shipping kids. Something about it just bothers me to the core. I know Damian has that “I pick on you but that just means I really like you” thing that children sometimes do, but I don’t find it cute. So what if there are “underlying reasons” for a mean kid’s behavior? At the end of the day, he’s being a jerk.
I’ve been lamenting the fact that the series hasn’t made any progress in Operation Strix since, well, forever. Not only has Anya not earned a stella since episode eleven, she hasn’t gotten a bolt either since episode six. Enter Madam Schlag, a woman seems to live for one thing and one thing only: tormenting children. Does this crone have anything better to do than to dole out punishment? She’s arguably just doing her job, but it’s the way she goes about it. Yes, you gotta discipline kids from time to time, but you shouldn’t enjoy doing it. But Schlag’s a sicko; she’s a sadist and her targets are children. It’s clear that she didn’t join this faculty in order to nurture and develop young minds into future scholars. She just wants to play the villain like a mean girl turned nurse. She delights in her nastiness. Schlag even has a name for her “move;” it’s pathetic how proud she is to play the heel.
To find an excuse to punish Henderson’s students, Schlag insists on inspecting everyone’s personal belongings. I’m kinda annoyed that the old man is letting this happen without a fight, but I guess you could argue that he believes in young charges. It’d be a flimsy argument, though. Anyways, Schlag acts like a prison warden desperately searching for contraband. Fine, it’s against the rules to have snacks on campus, but who the hell threatens to expel a kid over it? I’m reminded of how that one interviewer antagonized the Forgers just because he was a raging, misogynistic divorcee. We also can’t forget the fact that kids like Damian try to bully Anya on the daily without the adults noticing it. And now we have Schlag doing her best to ruin the children’s day. Honestly, Eden Academy feels like a shithole. Yeah, yeah, the horribleness is played up for laughs, so I shouldn’t take it seriously. But I dunno, man, I don’t think I would send my kid here if I lived in the SPY x FAMILY universe. I mean, Anya’s been here for a while now. What great skill or knowledge has she learned or gained from this school?
Damian is in danger of getting a tonitrus bolt just because he doesn’t have a handkerchief. Since this might threaten the mission, Anya feels compelled to help him out, because the poor girl thinks she has a spare to offer. Spoiler: she doesn’t. Unfortunately, Anya still ends up with a shiny, new tonitrus bolt over a damn handkerchief of all things, and she was just trying to be nice, too. It goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished in this cruel world. Nevertheless, if there’s any safe prediction to make out of this whole ordeal, it’s this: for every stella Anya gets, she’ll also get a bolt and vice versa. In other words, she won’t have like five stellas and two bolts, or two stellas and five bolts. Nothing lopsided like that. I bet you anything they’ll always be within one of each other. So hey, at least we can safely assume that Anya will be doing something laudable soon. The only question is what.
With Anya’s goofy antics out of the way, we can finally focus on what truly matters: breaking our hearts with a painful flashback. As a result, we go back in time to see a younger Loid play war games with other kids in the second half of the episode. Back then, the other kids referred to him as Advisor. Hell, back then, Loid still had parents. Oof. This is probably gonna be heavy. We already know that Loid was a war orphan. I have a bad feeling that his friendss won’t survive for very long either.
As it turns out, Loid’s father was a strict disciplinarian, so Schlag’s introduction actually serves as a comedic juxtaposition. Not only does the man tear his kid down mentally, Loid’s father resorts to corporal punishment. At her worst, Schlag would only stick tonitrus bolts on your forehead. The sad thing is that his father isn’t necessarily wrong. Loid shouldn’t be running around saying xenophobic stuff about Ostania. Loid needs to understand that war isn’t fun and games. But none of this justifies hitting a kid. We were just talking about moral relativism in the most recent episode of Dusk Beyond the End of the World. Well, corporal punishment is one of my many lines in the sand. I don’t care if it’s socially acceptable in other cultures to hit a kid, because it’s just wrong. It’s plain wrong to use fear of pain as a disciplinary tool. I grew up in an Asian household, so I’ve suffered through worse than a slap. My mom and I have a cordial relationship nowadays, but mostly out of pity. If I could cut her off without feeling guilty, I would. But I certainly will never forgive her for relying on corporal punishment. Loid’s father acted all nice later when Loid lied about wanting to buy a reference book (he actually used his allowance to buy military-themed toys instead), but this doesn’t matter to me. If you can only treat your kids well when you get exactly what you want from them, that’s still fucked up.
I also honestly look down on the “good” parents who would stand idly by and allow their partners to punish their kids this way. Loid’s mother yelled at her spouse after the fact, but the damage had been done. You gotta protect your kids. If you can’t stop the abuse from happening, then take them as far away as possible. But we can already predict that the impending war will soon claim the lives of Loid’s parents, so this is all moot. It’s ironic because his father was on his case for playing war games only because the old man didn’t think the talk of war was realistic.
Eventually, Ostania would launch a surprise attack, and one of the explosions caused a brick to come flying directly at Loid’s head. If he hadn’t deceived his father — if he hadn’t gone and bought a military helmet — he probably would’ve died there. In the end, it was a good thing that he lied. Just like how he has to lie now in order to keep his family and Operation Strix going. But I wonder if his friends survived. The first strike actually took out their secret hideout. The kids were only playing there because Loid found the place to begin with. Whether they survived or not, if young Loid can’t find them in the ensuing aftermath, he’ll definitely blame himself for their loss. I think all of the foreshadowing is leading to this. We already know his mom won’t survive, so I’m not looking forward to next week’s episode.
So why did they structure the episode like this? I’m not entirely sure. Maybe it’s to draw a contrast between the peaceful, low stakes nature of Anya’s daily life to the true horrors of what can really happen if Operation Strix fails. Even though Loid and the rest of WISE haven’t been making any meaningful progress, we can appreciate the fact that they also haven’t allowed the tenuous situation between the two factions to devolve even further. Thank god for those strawberries, right?
Maybe the contrast between the two stories also shows how badly Loid wants to avoid the mistakes of previous generations. After all, it’s simply bad parenting to insist on your kid studying all the time. Play is crucial to every child’s development, so his father was actually hurting Loid in two different ways. Being strict like him or Schlag only leads to kids rebelling (i.e. Loid resorting to lying) or, even worse, developing complexes when they become adults. At the very least, even if Loid can’t stop another war from breaking out, he isn’t repeating his father’s mistake in the home. Early on, he did try to get Anya to study too much, but he also kept an open mind when Yor advised him to let up a little. These days, I’d say he’s pretty lenient with Anya. He lets her goof off as much as he makes her study. Loid isn’t his father, and we can be glad for that.
We’ve come full circle. Loid lost everything from that war, and there’s no way he has fully healed from it. His only chance at salvation is by literally creating his own family and preventing another war. Well, he’s got the first part down at least. Lying has saved his life once, and it’ll do it again.
Stray thoughts & observations:
- I can’t explain it, but the OP feels more fitting as an ED.
- Imagine going to a rich school full of snobs and still being a delinquent.
- Wasn’t there a hate sink lady in Harry Potter as well? Normally, I wouldn’t mind it when a story borrows any element from another story, but considering what a horrible person Rowling has turned out to be…
- Oh no, not an activist!
- The handkerchief Anya hands Damian is clearly embroidered with her first initial, but Schlag somehow buys Damian’s story. Not only is Schlag a villain, she’s kinda shit at her job.
- Are we only seeing this flashback because Anya earned her second bolt? Did the shock from this hit Loid so hard that… that he has to remember how his family and friends died?
- They censored out his name, but at least we know it’s four characters or letters long.
- It’s weird how his parents’ eyes are also blurred out. I guess this shows you how much Loid is trying to dissociate from his painful past. He can’t even remember what they really look like anymore.
- Yes, I enjoy watching Scarlet from May I Ask for One Final Thing? sock a bunch of corrupt nobles in the face, and no, I’m not going to explain why it’s completely different from hitting a kid.
- Even though Loid was right about war breaking out soon, you can see how harmful propaganda can be. The kid honestly thinks the other side is full of horned devils who eat people. He wanted to become a soldier but for the wrong reasons.
- The silhouette of a bird turning into a bomb is a nice if morbid touch.
