Random Book 3

Aqua and Fu Hua: How to make the most tragic characters

Moralities, responsibilities, and burden

The next point that makes these two blue haired women so tragic is when we look at their journeys as to what leads to it with 3 important categories: Morality, responsibility, and burden. Despite how call they are we have several instances where Aqua and Fu Hua learn that their moralities aren't what they seem and despite a sense of responsibility we see how said responsibility has become nothing but a burden to them as they question whatever orders they were given and look back on the mistakes they made and the heavy burdens they carry which leads to anxiety, depression, sadness, and loneliness. For context to what I'm looking let's once again shift our focus on Aqua. Throughout the events of Birth by Sleep we see that Aqua puts herself before others. As evidence of when Aqua uses her own body to shield Cinderella and we also see how she immediately questioned her morals, when she attempts to eliminate Lady Tremaine and her daughters after sensing the darkness inside them but it wasn't until the Fairy Godmother appeared and showed her there is more than meets the eye. Aqua throughout most of her life was taught by Eraqus that light and darkness cannot coexist but after hearing the Fairy Godmother's words she ultimately realizes that there's more to light and darkness than what she seems. However she also has been shown to question responsibility, when she is reunited with Terra and Ventus we saw how much their travels have changed between the trio as Terra and Ven found out Aqua was following orders which completely upsets them and prompts them to leave her alone, leaving Aqua completely conflicted on her responsibility or her needs to be with her friends yet despite this she still holds on to hope so much so that the moment she heard Yin Sid said that Terra killed Eraqus, Aqua refused to believe it she still holds on to hope and it's that hope that ultimately breaks her heart when she is with her friends for one final time Aqua learned from Terra himself that he did kill Eraqus but Xehanort tricked him and Ven arrives and asks them to kill him. I can imagine how Aqua feels at this moment she clings to hope that they'll continue to be together yet her world is slowly but surely falling apart, it gets even worse when Xehanort and Vanitas arrives and this is where things get much worse, Xehanort takes over Terra's body, Ven falls asleep and Aqua sacrifices herself to ensure Terra despite being possessed doesn't fall into the Realm of Darkness where things only get worse from here but more on that later. Now let's move onto Fu Hua. She honestly had things really bad going for her ever since she joined ten Fire Moth, she became a MANTIS and was immortal for more than 50,000 years and she's seen too much, she lost most of her comrades, including her mentor, the Final Herrscher destroyed the Previous Era and is forced to rebuild human civilization from scratch which leads to the Current Era but even that didn't stop there, she continued to lose many people she cared about rather through battle or of old age, Fu Hua was slowly but surely on the verge of losing her humanity and after he final 2 friends Fuxi and Nuwa died, Fu Hua finally cut herself off from human society and fought the Honkai like a machine. We see how so much loss was all that Fu Hua had continued to feel for countless years on end sure she had the Book of Fuxi by her side but considering that she would shut down later due to lack of batteries. This suffering continues when she had her Seven Disciples and we see how cold Fu Hua has gotten too be far she does treat them like family but that darkness in her heart is still there as she taught them that there is no mercy for the corruption no matter who they are as in Fu Hua's mind the Honkai doesn't deserve any mercy this is likely her blaming Honkai for forcing her to endure countless years of pain, while this is understandable her students didn't like this method and so in order to protect someone they knew is corrupt by Honkai they attempted to assassinate Fu Hua, they don't hate Fu Hua they just simply did what they needed to be done. This ultimately nerfed Fu Hua not just physically but mentally as well as this would cause her to question her morals later on down the line. During her time as a Valkyrie, Fu Hua's mindset in my opinion is even worst than it is before and I'll explain to you guys why so for the next 500 years she was working with Otto as part of a deal they made, we also see Fu Hua have another student whom she raised since childhood who sadly died during the Second Eruption against Sirin and the strange thing is that Fu Hua despite having sacrificed all her memories at that point truly never forget the person who is basically her adopted daughter. Many years later we would see Fu Hua regain her soft spot and have friends again when she went to St. Freya where she was a Class Monitor and a member of Squad V alongside Kiana, Mei, and Bronya. Despite the happy times, it was revealed that Fu Hua's reasoning for being there was to act as a spy on Otto's orders on Kiana and ultimately kidnap her when the time is right. And this is where things get heartbreaking, Fu Hua ultimately betrayed her friends as she put the mission to destroy Honkai over friends and it gets even worse when she attempts to justify her betrayal to Himeko who clearly wasn't buying it but we still see that she cares for her friends as she stopped Rita from killing Himeko, ultimately her orders ultimately led to her downfall as Fu Hua realized too late that Otto wanted Kiana to enact his own selfish goals and it's not to destroy the Honkai it was at this point that Fu Hua realized that she had been nothing but a pawn to Otto and when he had enough of her Otto was going to get rid of her which is actually what she did by putting a bullet in her head luckily Fu Hua used the last of her sentience to remain alive and help her allies and it's at this point she realized her mistake. When Kiana calls her out on her betrayal, we can see how Fu Hua feels complete regret, as her friends whom all trusted her were betrayed by her as Fu Hua is to blame for Himeko's death, Mei losing her Herrscher forms, Sirin's reawakening, and Otto gaining as much power as he did something that took a heavy burden on Fu Hua, luckily she redeemed herself when she held off Kevin to buy Kiana some time to escape but it ultimately caused her to lose the last of her sentience and fall into a deep slumber but that's not where it ends. Looking at their experiences it's pretty clear that Aqua and Fu Hua have been through similar situations. Both of them have been in situations where they were following orders and despite their wants they ultimately put orders first over their friends while the difference is that Eraqus actually cares about Aqua while Otto only viewed Fu Hua as a pawn we can clearly see how by choosing orders over friends have dire consequences as Terra and Kiana they people they were ordered to spy on were absolutely furious and felt justifiably betrayed and though they were following orders Aqua and Fu Hua immediately take responsibility for it and blame themselves for it placing even more burden on them then they already have they thought they can handle their situations when in reality all they did was make things worse. We also see situations where they questioned their morals and orders after seeing the dire consequences that it placed them in and it caused them great pain not just physically but also mentally and we see this when both of them sacrificed themselves to save Terra and Kiana from situations such as falling into the Realm of Darkness and to get away from Kevin but in the process both characters have ended up all alone completely isolated which brings us to my final point.