Have This Meme I Made While You Wait For My Fyodor Analysis.

Did anyone else notice that fanfiction authors seem to think Tchaikovsky is the only Russian composer in all of time? Like seriously whenever Fyodor is listening to or playing Russian music it's always Tchaikovsky!

In Episode 4 of Season 3 when Fyodor is introduced he consistently refers to himself with 'boku' from memory, which I thought was weird given his age, but then during the prison break arc he uses 'watashi'. Why the change?

Does it count if they're family?

reblog if you have skilled writer friends and you're damn proud of them

Imagine if Chuuya during Storm Bringer or Verlaine got this while doing Duolingo...

Was playing Genshin today and thought some of you artists/authors/creators should see this.

Warning BSD manga spoilers

Imagine if Fyodor did get on that plane at the end of the chapter though.

Fyodor: Randomly shows up, murders a bunch of people, flattens the air port, expounds theories of world peace, refuses to elaborate, leaves.

Would be super interesting to see an analysis on your top 3 favorite characters. If you want to of course!

My top 3 favourite characters huh? Honestly my favourite characters tend to very depending on my mood but if I had to pick a top 3 I guess it would be....

Chuuya

Akutagawa

Fyodor

Not necessarily in that order. I'd love to write an analysis for all three but at the moment the only one I have ideas for is Fyodor so I'll stick with him for now. Honestly this man is a big question mark to me, we don't know anything about his background or what made him the way he is. We don't even know if he's human. All the same I'll see what I can do.

Before you read this analysis though I would like to make it very clear that I DO NOT CONDONE THE PHILOSOPHY EXPLAINED IN THIS ANALYSIS.

Spoiler alert: This analysis contains spoilers for chapters 120.5 and 46 of the BSD Manga as well as Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky inspired by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky and his well-known work Crime and Punishment is one of the principal antagonists in the multimedia series Bungo Stray Dogs written by Kafka Asagiri and illustrated by Sango Harukawa. Arguably the only intellectual rival to Ranpo and Dazai, Fyodor’s plans often cause the Agency and Mafia alike quite a bit of difficulty ostensibly for the purposes of creating a world without sin and ability users. However, upon closer inspection this goal doesn’t really make sense given Fyodor’s behaviour. That is, unless the reader takes into account a particular section of the novel Crime and Punishment, the namesake of Fyodor’s ability. This essay aims to explain how this section of Crime and Punishment informs Fyodor’s behaviour and goals in Bungo Stray Dogs. This will be done by first exploring Fyodor’s motivations based on what he says in the manga series, second by analysing the section of Crime and Punishment in question and third by explaining how these link together. For clarity Fyodor Dostoyevsky the character will be referred to as Fyodor, while Fyodor Dostoevsky the author will be referred to as Dostoevsky.

The first instance where Fyodor talks about his goals and what he wants with the book takes place in chapter 46 of the manga, The Masked Assassin. During his conversation with Dazai, Fyodor states, ‘Man… is sinful and foolish. Even if they know it is all an artifice, they cannot help but kill each other. Someone must purify them for their sins. That is why I seek the “book,”.’ Then again in the same chapter he states, ‘And I will use that book… to make… a world free of sin and skill users.’ Once again in chapter 120.5 Fyodor talks about his goal saying, ‘I, his humble servant, shall take up his dream… and go on to build a truly lasting peace.’ If what he says is taken as fact—Fyodor has lied even to the audience before—then it makes his goal quite clear. His goal is to create a world without sin, specifically it seems the sin of killing each other given he talks about creating world peace and what he says about humanity being unable to help killing each other. He also seems to want to create a world free of skill users. This is a fairly straight forward goal. However, there is one key problem. If Fyodor were to succeed, he himself would be unable to live in this world for two key reasons. Firstly, Fyodor is a skill user. Secondly, his methods to achieving world peace and a world free of sin have caused countless deaths as any reader will know. Additionally, on being asked by Fukuzawa during chapter 120.5 how he will go about creating world peace he states, ‘By triggering a world war.’ Arguably, what he means is that instead of uniting the world through virtue and goodness as Fukuchi was going to, he is going to unite the world against the common enemy of skill users. He himself says in the same chapter, ‘I will build a millennium of peace. Not with “good” and “virtue” but with the ugliness inside every man. And I will build it atop the corpses of skill users.’ Now given that Fyodor is telling the truth about his goal, the question is raised: how can someone as intelligent as Fyodor not see the contradiction behind what he is doing. He is going to cause suffering and blood shed, cause humanity to commit a multitude of sins, in order to eliminate suffering and bloodshed and sin. The answer is that he can see this contradiction but according to his philosophy what he’s doing is ok and not contradictory to his goal at all.

Raskolnikov, the main character of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment sets out this philosophy during his conversation with Porfiry in Chapter 5 of Part 3 of the novel. The conversation they have is about an article that Raskolnikov had written in which ‘a certain hint is presented that there supposedly exists in the world certain persons who can…that is, who not only can but are entitled to commit all sorts of crimes…’. At first glance this seems like a totally illogical idea, but this is simply Porfiry’s ‘forced and deliberate’ distortion of it. In his article Raskolnikov has stated that he believes that people are divided into two categories: the ordinary, and the extraordinary. ‘The ordinary must live in obedience with the law […]. While the extraordinary have the right to commit all sorts of crimes and in various ways transgress the law,’ Porfiry summarises in Chapter 5 Part 3. Raskolnikov states that this is almost correct but that he doesn’t think that all extraordinary people must break the law or commit crimes. What he believes is that an extraordinary person has the right to break the law or commit crimes if it is for the sake of benefiting humanity. The example he gives is as follows, ‘If […] Newton’s discoveries could become known to people in no other way than by sacrificing the lives of one, or ten, or a hundred or more people who were hindering the discovery, or standing as an obstacle in its path, then Newton would have the right, and it would even be his duty… to remove those ten or a hundred people, in order to make his discovery known to all mankind. It by no means follows from this, incidentally, that Newton should have the right to kill anyone…’. What this means is essentially that Raskolnikov believes that an extraordinary person, as he defines it, has the right to commit crimes if the end goal is the greater good of humanity. He goes on to explain that he believes that all ‘lawgivers and founders of man kind’, one of the examples he gives is Napoleon, have spilt sometimes quite innocent blood in their path. He states, ‘It is even remarkable that most of these benefactors and founders of mankind were especially terrible bloodshedders. In short, I deduce that all, not only great men, but even those who are a tiny bit off the beaten track—that is who are a tiny bit capable of saying something new—by their very nature cannot fail to be criminals…’. With this philosophy in mind, Fyodor’s actions and motivations start to make a bit more sense.

It is likely then, that Fyodor not only believes this philosophy but also sees himself as one of these extraordinary people and therefore believes that he has the right to commit crime because creating world peace and a world without sin would be a benefit to all of humanity. That is why to him, his actions and goals are aligned and do not contradict each other, to put it simply, to him, the ends justify the means. Because he is benefiting humanity, he has the right to commit crimes, at least in his mind. With this in mind his actions make a lot more sense. The way he sees it, he is simply carrying out his duty to humanity as one of these ‘extraordinary’ people. Therefore, he is not committing any crimes and were he to succeed he would be able to live in the world he had created.

To conclude, Fyodor’s actions and goals are aligned if one views them through the philosophy set out by Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. If it is assumed that Fyodor believes this philosophy then in his mind, he is simply carrying out his duty and is therefore not committing any crimes, thus he would be able to live in the world free of sin that he intends to create.

Verlaine and Dazai: Two Sides of the Same Coin of Loneliness

As anyone who has read Storm Bringer will know, Verlaine dislikes people telling him he's human. So, that got me thinking, if you were friends with Verlaine and aware of his situation, what could you say to him that wouldn't hurt him more? Eventually I concluded that what you could say is that you know he isn't human and that's ok, he doesn't need to be human. But even that probably wouldn't bridge that gap he seems to see between himself and others.

Verlaine describes the loneliness he feels quite vividly. This is how it's written. This takes place in the English version of the Storm Bringer light novel on page 58. 'True loneliness...,' began Verlaine in an elegant tone reminiscent of a violin solo. 'True loneliness is the comet travelling alone through the universe, surrounded by vacuous space and nothingness at absolute zero,' (p. 58). This is quite the striking metaphor. He is, I believe referencing the philosophical idea that if a comet is travelling in space away from any other object there is no real way of determining that it is moving or even if it is even there, since nobody is there to observe it. Incidentally a similar idea is put forward in George Orwell's novel 1984 in that if no one is aware of what the past truly was, does is it even exist? This, I think is what Verlaine is getting at with this vivid depiction of loneliness. So I thought to myself, what if rather than having a companion comet, which is what Verlaine seeks through Chuuya, what if, someone was observing that comet. Put more clearly, although Verlaine might not have someone exactly like him, especially given that Chuuya turned out to be the original rather than the clone, he might have someone who doesn't understand exactly what he is going through but is willing to stay by him all the same, as Rimbaud was. An observer of the comet, if you will. And I think Asagiri does explore this idea, through Dazai.

In Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era Odasaku desribes Dazai's state of loneliness in a way which I personally found strikingly similar to Verlaine's description, at least in terms of imagery. He states, '...nothing beyond your own expectations will happen. Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander the darkness for eternity,' (p. 160.). This takes place on page 160 of the English version of Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era. While not exactly referencing comets or space, the idea of wandering (or floating like a comet) in darkness is similar. It is my personal belief that even though most of us are no Dazai in terms of intelligence and no Verlaine in terms of being skill based life forms, no one can truly understand exactly what our life experience is like. Even if they love us, no one can truly know what our experience on Earth is like. But that's ok, because they don't need to. This is because we can still have meaningful relationships that cure us of loneliness without this level of understanding, of course a measure of understanding is needed, but in my opinion the level of understanding Verlaine was looking for in Chuuya, of being the same, is not necessary. And this is shown both through how much Rimbaud cared for Verlaine and through Dazai's relationship with his colleagues at the agency.

According to page 100 of the English version of Storm Bringer 'Nobody could understand how Dazai worked.' Which probably means that no one can understand Dazai. During the Dark Era light novel when Odasaku is dying we see Dazai realise how well Odasaku knew him, but even here Odasaku wishes he knew Dazai better. And yet we still see Dazai have meaningful relationships Odasaku and with his colleagues at the agency. They care about him and, I think, he cares about them. They know that even though he's a slacker he will be there when it really counts. When the agency is in trouble after the incident with Nikolai and the chainsaw (I forget what the arc was called) it's always Dazai that Atsushi pictures telling him what to do and giving him advice. It's clear how much Atsushi cares for Dazai given what he goes through to save his life during the 55 Minutes light novel and given Kunikida's reaction at the end of said light novel it's pretty clear how important Dazai is to him too.

To conclude, in my opinion what Verlaine needs is, I think, to recognise that people do not have to be the same as him in order to have a meaningful relationship with him, to stay by him and to cure him of his loneliness. This is something he realises at the very end of Storm Bringer but unfortunately by that time it's already too late.

When you get this, list 5 songs you like to listen to, publish them, and send this ask to the last 10 people in your notifs!

Darkness My Sorrow (Chuuya's character song)

Go!!! By FLOW

Hero's Come Back!! By nobodyknows+

Serene and Fathomless by HOYO-mix

Deadly Drive by GRANRODEO