○ Interlude 2: Abutment

With Promessa, the first phase of the series is concluded.  Having now shown the other cyborgs, exploring who they are and the intensity of the desires that drive them, the stage is set for the events to come.  With this context, a few lines will now be spared to highlight the key developments, and what to watch for as the series progresses.

Jose and Henrietta

While Jose and Henrietta dominated the introductory episodes, they have taken a back seat while the other fratello were explored.  However, they were not ignored, and in every episode their all-important dynamic was further developed.

Jose has become increasingly entrenched in his dilemma.  As long as he continues, he cannot fully admit to the error of his initial act; to do so would force him to rectify it like Raballo or sacrifice his self-image as a kind man.  Neither of these is acceptable.  But no human can long exist in such an uncertain state, especially one so introspective as Jose, and in time he has sought a new answer.

The crux of the matter is that if he is to be a good person while not opposing the agency, then there must be a reason for it.  His solution is to convince himself that taking Henrietta was not the wrong choice for her wellbeing, or at the very least that he has made up for it.  If it were otherwise, if in fact he has delivered her to yet more misery, he remains unjustified.  Therefore, as a surrogate to addressing the root problem, he focuses on pleasing her, putting an unnatural stress on his expectations and the appearances he maintains.

Such demands a great deal of Henrietta to placate his conscience.  It was not enough that she merely performed as a normal little girl for him under the guise of enrichment; now too she must convince him that her life is good and that she is happy.  That he reaches to add more to her burden when he is distressed betrays how crucial this is to him.

However, the necessities of the agency demand Jose must train her as well.  But he does so poorly.  What began as negligence, the result of reflexive withdrawal from an unpleasant reality, became an active effort to prevent Henrietta from becoming upset.  Handling her with kid gloves, he proves that not only is he morally superior to the other trainers, but that she is better off under his guidance.  That there may be a cost to this does not factor in; maintaining his narrative is too important.

This accounts for the vitriol he shows criticism as well.  All of his small kindnesses must be correct for the greater problem to be obscured.  If not, if perhaps Henrietta is a threat to herself and others due to his mismanagement, then this undermines not only his proficiency as a trainer but his character as well, striking once again at why he continues if it is not best for Henrietta.  The whole house of cards falls down.

The final result is a selective blindness toward Henrietta.  He relies on her facile contentment to support himself now, and must turn his gaze from any troubling signs to the contrary.  It is a paradox that having become so preoccupied with appearances, constantly monitoring her behavior in order to curtail it, he has lost the ability to take joy in her heartfelt affection, knowing in his own heart that he does not warrant it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This has all been terribly confusing for Henrietta.  Receiving conflicting messages on what to be and when to be it, she feels responsible for his disquietude.  She must still be doing something wrong, but what it is she isn't quite sure.  This elicits a persistent anxiety which she seeks to soothe by submitting herself ever more to his wishes, hoping that she can find the proper role if she only tries hard enough.

Her worries have only become more urgent, for growing inside Henrietta is a feeling which did not come from Jose's designs.  More than filial, her affection has taken on a very specific and vibrant form: romantic love.  Seeing him as the ideal man, she adores him with all the sincerity that the first love of a besotted little girl affords.

As such, none of this is an act to Henrietta.  Faithful and obedient, she views his selfish demands as guidance.  Her love is telling her what he wants by way of tutelage and she is only happy to embody it to the best of her ability.  Consequently, she does not begrudge, or even seem to notice, this heavy yolk.  Nor does she question the incongruity of being both a normal child and a cyborg; that is simply what she is because Jose said so.

As the series continues, this interplay will only become more important, for even if Jose's suggestion is incoherent it contains a grain of truth.  Henrietta is not normal, but she is a flowering young woman undergoing all the dramatic changes her age would indicate.  Yet she is a programmed assassin as well.  Not one or the other, not one being her true nature and the other an excisable addition, but both simultaneously.  And with Jose inexplicably at odds on the subject, Henrietta is left to navigate these two halves herself.

Rico

Rico is the second girl to be explored, and stands in contrast to Henrietta's hopeful vehemence with her saddening exposition of abandonment.  Her relationship presents a conundrum: why does she not rebel against Jean, though aware of his contempt for her and the horrors he forces her to commit?  To merely say "the conditioning" is not enough and requires a further investigation of her character.

In her heart, against all reason, Rico believes that it is her fault for everything that has happened to her.  Unrelieved of her memories, she can never forget that her parents did not love her, or if they did it was long forgotten, overcome by their exhaustion.  Such knowledge creates a hole that is impossible to completely fill, and it bequeathed to her the catastrophically low self-esteem that defines her personality.

Her need for attachment now transferred to Jean, she looks to him for this unfilled connection.  It does not matter if her mind knows he will never love her; he is in a sense her father now, and she cannot conceive of him as entirely evil no matter what he does.  Indeed, given the way she regards herself his mistreatment is only natural and entirely deserved.  His disdain provides affirmation of her lowly existence.

This explains one of Rico's other oddities, and that is how she can demonstrate herself to be a proficient assassin and marksman on missions and yet underperform during training.  Rather than try to be better for her trainer while in his presence, she seeks to reinforce his low estimation of her.  Paradoxically, by being incompetent, she verifies that he is right and she is worthless, and all is as it should be.

In order to maintain control without love Jean intentionally isolates her to ensure that he is her only option.  By being alone she cannot know what it is like outside her prison, left to believe that even if Jean doesn't care for her, nobody else would either.  It is his most malevolent aspect, that he recognizes what drives Rico and sees it only as a method to leverage his authority more fully.

Emilio's importance, then, was more than first romance.  He was a way out, a person to whom she was uniquely dear.  It was a role the other girls could not play, for they already have their own loves, and it was beyond conception that she find another handler.  That is like suggesting one find other parents.  To feel such open affection, and know that perhaps there was somebody she could count on, undermined Jean's hideous abuse.

As such, Emilio's death is not just a collateral accident.  To be forced to kill anybody who might rescue her is precisely what Jean intended when he gave her that order.  Hope weakened his power over her and that is not tolerable.  Such a cost is, by definition, acceptable to him.

This is why Rico's appalling suffering is for more than our pity.  There is an invisible, choking miasma that permeates Section Two which inevitably suffocates the consciences of those who work there.  Different characters may console themselves with rationalizations, camouflaging what this place truly is, but the reality remains.

Rico functions as the canary in the coal mine, and though she will never openly remark on her torment her condition bears witness to the place that produced it.  No matter how they are justified, fear and pain are the accoutrements of the agency.  If the mistaken belief such were a necessary evil survived the first two episodes, it died with Emilio.  What is left is a residue of senselessness, and a reminder that on the other side of Rico's blank stares and mirthless smiles there lies tragedy unspeakable.

Triela and Claes

Triela and Claes are the two older girls at the agency.  They are roommates, best friends even despite their differing personalities.  In both of them is found a depth of character which does not reveal itself until long after introduction.  As such, Bambola and Promessa are not comprehensive explanations of who they are but guides to how best understand them going forward.

Triela expresses herself through compassion.  It is a controlled form of care, one which stands in contrast to the reckless emotionalism of Jose.  Rather than see pain and act without reflection, compelled by the force of her own feelings, she supports with a measured, but tender, awareness.  She seeks to give her beneficiaries what they need, not what they ask for, even if they don't fully appreciate it until later.  Such belies a deeper method and a keen mind to execute it.

This would perhaps seem overbearing, imposing her will on those around her out of self-satisfaction, but this does not match the facts.  Never does she gloat, and her I-told-you-so's are always mitigated by fondness.  Indeed, she even obscures the extent of her help, yet another behavior that is undertaken out of principle rather than inherent shyness or self-deprecation.

Such characters are notorious for being dull.  With no qualities beyond their goodwill, they typically lack conflict and react in a predictable fashion.  What saves Triela from such a fate are her quirks and faults.  It is the essence of her episode to showcase her humanity, and all the hopes, frustrations, and misunderstandings which accompany it.  Even the end, as she stares out her window, counteracts what could be misconstrued as moralizing the result of her righteousness with an admission of error.

Hiding underneath both her care and her confusions is yet one more layer to her personality.  At her core, Triela lives with an abiding loneliness.  She is not the same as the people around her, and is confronted with questions they do not comprehend.  The other girls look up to her, each in her own way, but they do not quite understand who their big sister is.

Further, she is prevented from finding solace in her own trainer, for she has surpassed him in both proficiency and benevolence.  Even as Triela watches over everybody around her, there is nobody to watch over her.  It is a testament to her character that even though Hilshire has disappointed her deepest desire, she still found a way to appreciate what he is, elevating him in the process, even if he is not the father who loves her back the way she loves him.

All of this presents one final conundrum: none of the above is an explanation.  It only describes how she acts, not why she does or how she came to be this way; Bambola is set in the present, and even she dismisses her origins.  Why does she give everything to others if it does not fix her loneliness, or garner acclaim, or get her what she wants?  Why would she forgive Mario, a man who had wronged her beyond measure, without expectation of recompense?  That, for now, remains the true mystery.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Claes, the other elder, is a different sort of conundrum.  Inscrutably aloof and cerebral in the present, she is prone to speaking cryptic lines while hiding behind an enigmatic and patronizing smile.  The impression she gives is one of casual selfishness, but this is an incomplete picture.  A full portrait requires the past, humanizing her in the opposite manner of Triela, and this is precisely where Promessa takes place.

Claes' personality is deeply influenced by loss.  Her life began happily, protected and cherished in a paradise she did not know she inhabited.  She naturally sank her roots in and drank deeply of the love she enjoyed.  Then a nameless catastrophe struck and robbed her of everything, delivering to the agency a child broken in body and mind.

Against all probability, she found Raballo.  It gave her a second chance, a new opportunity to find connection and be loved.  She knew she lived in a forbidding place, but if she just had him she could still flourish; none of the other girls had ever been cared for so deeply and repeatedly as she had.  Then he too was taken and she was shattered once again, the belief in her heart dying as well.

Like Henrietta, her past has left an indelible impression.  Even with her memories erased, Claes can never forget that the world has repeatedly stolen from her that which she valued above all else.  It has aged her, and leaves her haunted with the fear that everything she loves will be turned to ash in cruel caprice.

In compensation, Claes has turned inward, away from others; she will eventually lose them, but she cannot lose herself.  Fueled by a fierce pride that brooks no denigration, she finds value in her own life and achievements.  Self-control is her ultimate virtue, for it is the power to stand unsupported and unaffected by the world.  This trade off leaves her safe, but at the cost of isolation.

Yet if solitude were her only purpose, she would merely be cold.  What counterbalances this is her promise, a reminder that she is to be the gentle Claes who follows her conscience as well.  Along with her self-control, her principles are everything to her, for without a handler to follow they are all that give her existence meaning.

It is this tension between self-containment and decency that creates the girl who exists today.  She stands apart, confident in her superiority and sometimes a little petty in her pride, yet does not wholly reject the other girls either.  It is a delicate balance, leaving her to both mock and rely upon those around her whom she is at once most similar yet little relates to.

Claes is still a girl in progress.  Brilliant, willful, and intent on her own values, she is an admirable person.  But there remains something missing.  To understand is to see her sitting quietly somewhere with a book when she is suddenly surprised to find that the space next to her is empty, and she does not know why she believed it would be otherwise.

Abutment

With the primary cyborgs introduced, some observations can now be made.  Each is a unique individual, a girl who has come to the place she is at through her own path.  How they express themselves, romantically, compassionately, intellectually, and even with self-hatred are as divergent as their own lives.

Yet underneath they all spring from the same deep need to be meaningfully connected, reflected in these children as a bond to another.  The conditioning did not create this, it only enhanced it, focusing the full force of this fundamental human impulse onto the men the cyborgs are meant to serve.  It is their shared dream that the love they have for their trainers will one day be returned and their existence made whole.

It would seem such a simple thing, yet it is inexplicably denied.  It is not their fault they are in this situation, controlling neither the source of this desire nor the means to satisfy it.  Whether they ever achieve this happiness is beyond their power, and when occasionally fate deigns that they do it is so easily taken away.  There is something perverse in how misaligned such yearning is with reality.

Through this extreme situation, the series brings such problems into sharp relief, extending the conundrum beyond the tragedy of a few cyborg children in Italy.  There is a universality to the melancholy longing for that which is essential but cannot be had.

Which returns to the question: will these girls ever receive what they so desire?  Despite his struggles, Jose still holds out hope for Henrietta.  Hilshire showed that there remains potential in these men, and Raballo pointed the way, demonstrating that they all contain the foundations for change.  That there is a path out of this place is not beyond possibility.

←Episode 5

Episode 6→