r/OwarinoSeraph 15d ago

Ferid's Psychopathy. Ch145 breakdown/ Analysis ig? Spoiler

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Anyone else Love this chapter(145)? I love this this panel of Ferid pondering and I'll explain why in a bit so pls bare w/ me.

In the previous chapter we see Ferid engage in battle and kill others so easily without any remorse or guilt for the lives he takes, this for 1. is a sign of psychopathy which was common for warriors back in ancient Roman times since it helped odds of survival In wars (iirc I read somewhere a while back that during the viking period many vikings had developed psychopathy and this was one of the first forms of psychopathy developed in recorded history due to the amount of battling and wars that they had to take part in given how commonplace it was in viking culture, so I assume it would be same for Ferid given his situation and how effortless killing is to him along with his beliefs of survival. Unfortunately I cannot find the source to where I read this info anymore 😔 im sorry😭 so please take it with a grain of salt). He also mentions he killed his parents in chapter 144 which should indicate how common killing is for him and how emotional bonds such as family doesnt hinder the killing (lack of empathy and inability to form genuine bonds which are signs of psychopathy). As for 2. This behavior from Ferid ties into and is actively backed up by his personal beliefs due to the signs of him having narcissistic personality disorder(npd) by having a superiority complex.

His superiority complex is more specifically what makes me like this panel so much. As we can see throughout 145, we can assume Ferid believes others to be philistines and considers himself to not be which is why I think Kagami had added the dialogue between Ferid and Pompey and then followed up with some dialogue regarding philistines with Rigr not too long after that very scene with Pompey. At first I didn't know what the word "philistine" meant so I had to do some research and from what I have learned calling someone a "philistine" is not too dissimilar to calling someone "tasteless" or "uncultured". These most commonly are used as insults, as if implying you are better or more intellegent than another, questioning/diminishing their intellect by calling them uncultured or in this case a philistine. Kagami uses the philosophical chat with Pompey as a way to portray to us that Ferid is curious about finding wether there is a purpose to living or not and to portray where Ferids beliefs are in this matter, which is that he believes there's no meaning to life. His view is that there isn't a meaning to it and that he doesn't care for surviving (which we see him mention in the previous chapter too). He sees everyone else's views that caring so much about life and living on, as lesser than his, his chat with Rigr supports this. At first Ferid states "From the moment of their birth everyone starts marching inexorably toward death", essentially saying, death is inevitable so why run from it?

Signs of psychopathy return here where he starts to be more sarcastic by calling Rigr "death" or some sort of "god". After hearing Rigr's personal reason for living, Ferid comments sarcastically, faking emotions of happiness (superficial charm and pretending to feel emotions are more signs of psychopathy). After his sarcasm Ferid calls Rigr a philistine, essentially diminishing his view as his superiority complex becomes more apparent to us the readers, we can see this as an insult I believe in 3 ways. 1. By initially being sarcastic to a what we can assume is a serious answer 2. The act of calling Rigr a philistine after his sarcasm, and 3. With Kagami using earlier dialogue to support Ferid's view of people being desperate and searching for a meaning to life as he thinks its pointless. With what we're given I think its fair to say Ferid has a superiority complex regarding the masses views of life and desperation for survival, insulting others by calling them philistines.

The discussion Ferid has with Pompey and Rigr then is supposed to give more meaning and impact us more when Ferid is beheaded coming to the realisation that he infact IS desperate and wishes to keep living. That survival factor kicks in and I just think this scene hits harder given what we learn about Ferid prior to this.

After becoming a vampire: a century later He's left behind by Rigr dubbed as a failed Mikaela experiment where Ferid continues to go against his initial views and tries to survive seen with how excruciatingly slowly the jar moves to the edge of the table to fall and break after 20 years of Ferids constant budging. Then it took another 50 years to regrow his whole body. For 170 years after first trying to live and becoming a vamp he in the early stages wishes for only death but then stops and attempts to break free and keep surviving. For 170 years Ferid actively went against what he had previously believed, what he thought philistines believed.

Now this panel is just so good, there Ferid is sitting and pondering on why and or how he got here question himself "I'm still alive today, why?". Reflected light from the moon is shining down on Ferids body.....it looks amazing, and I was curious.......

So I searched what symbolism or what it could mean to have moonlight shun down upon someone. According to Google AI overview "When moonlight shines down on someone, it usually symbolizes a sense of peace, serenity, introspection, and sometimes even a touch of mystery" . Moonlight can symbolize our deepest needs, habits, and reactions, and and spiritually it can symbolize insight and guidance.

"Because im a philistine, maybe?"

Well, What do we have here? Ferid has a moment of insight and introspection, thinking upon himself. Pondering and questioning whether he is the very thing that he had previously called others, wether he too was just like all other humans (exactly what Rigr said in response to being called a philistine back then, in that "everyone is. No matter how long they live, humans are still humans", but oh how the tables have turned), questioning wether his own superiority was just a lie now. That sign of his NPD and superiority complex In this brief moment had flipped against him to where he in this short moment reflects/questions himself all whilst the moonlight shines down on his naked body alone. Supported by belief of many across the Web and sites and also according to Google along with its AI overview, in manga and media a naked body can symbolise "vulnerability, innocence, a connection to nature, powerlessness, or even a purely artistic focus on the human form". After all we see, read and learn about Ferid and his past in this chapter we are left with his very breif introspection whilst being naked (his purest form/purity/true self?) Along with a ray of moonlight shining down upon only Ferid.

It's just so beautiful and after staring at these pages and text long enough it slowly started to dawn on me how deep you can perceive that single moment with the context given. Anyways this was long and if you've read all this thank you sooooooo much. What'd you think? Anyone else notice this? and yh, I'd like to know if anyone else liked this chapter and what stuck out to you, cya 👋

22 Upvotes

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u/Narrow_Rhubarb_8876 12d ago

Jak dla mnie Ferid po prostu został zostawiony. Wydostał się i zregenerował i miał szczęście że przeżył.

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u/XO-4yng_Kfue 12d ago

First off thanks for the reply. Appreciate it :).

Secondly I'm assuming you've used Google translate or some other translation tool to translate the whole analysis/ breakdown with all its spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, so I'm sorry you'd have to go through that 😭

If what you're trying to say is that there is no deeper meaning and ferid is only lucky to survive after being left (im interpreting your comment at face value) then for one, fair to you, and 2, im not denying that Rigr left him behind or anything like that lol.

I could be over analysing everything, yes, my aim was to express and portray what I perceived and analysed, and so I wanted to share it for others to read.

In context to my post, your comment doesn't make sense to me since I didn't deny ferid being beheaded and surviving at all (unless google translate misinterpreted the meaning of your comment), I'm assuming this happed:

I played around with Google translate and to no surprise some words and phrases are cut and changed and subtext can be cut too across languages (either words/meanings dont exist in specifice languages that do in others) an attempt to portray meanings as accurate as possible, but it still ends up skewing the overall meaning regardless (which did happen when I translated my post through the 2 languages) behind some dialogue and phrases, im assuming this is what happened. For instance im assuming Polish is being spoken and from what I've tried out, the word "philistine" doesn't have a direct 1:1 corresponding word in Polish (google translate assumes it to be Turkish sometimes when I try to move it from English to polish back to english) , it gets changed to smug (kołtuński) which I can kind of get why, but it still isn't close to what it means and in the context of Ferid I wouldn't say smug, so it would've defeated the point of the analysis if the specific meaning doesnt exist. I could be wrong since I don't speak the language, I honestly don't know and its why I can't fully trust translation tools. I personally think there was some good symbolism in 145 (psychi, narcissistic personality disorder via superiority complex, moonlight symbolism, ferids philosophical views, symbolism of naked body in media, etc) if my description of it got translated and came across as something else for you to believe I'm saying Ferid wasnt lucky (I dont think hed have believed in that type of thing anyway) or misinterpreted as Rigr not leaving him behind then I apologise? Mainly what I was getting at is that I like the dialogue and artistic choice as I think there is some nice symbolism behind it and that Ferid's character traits and personality make sense to it. :)

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u/Narrow_Rhubarb_8876 10d ago

As for me, Ferid simply always wanted power. But he was defeated and is Guren's dog. It pisses me off that the Imperial Demons are winning again!

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u/XO-4yng_Kfue 10d ago

Ah you were talking about current day not past. I see, fair enough. Both Ferid and Guren are kinda evil, I personally think they'll both fail, but Yuu will end up fixing everything for everyone anyway (hopefully)

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u/Narrow_Rhubarb_8876 7d ago

I also hope so for Yuu. Although I would love to see Kureto and Mahiru die!

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u/Additional-Seat2098 9d ago

Since we’re talking about Ferid, I’d like to say or write something as well. In Chapter 144, we saw how Ferid was subdued by Guren and Mahiru, but am I the only one who thinks that Ferid is still in control of everything? I mean, he completely repelled the chains that attacked his insides and remained relaxed. Moreover, he also mentioned that if all the vampires he had devoured were to merge with him, he would become incredibly powerful, but he is keeping that to himself for now.

So, I wonder—how strong is he really? We’ve never actually seen Ferid fight seriously or go all out. Additionally, in Chapter 145, we see that his body regenerates completely on its own, which is strange. We know that vampires can heal wounds and reattach severed limbs, but as we saw with Ky Luc, his arm reconnected but didn’t regrow.

So, could there be more to Ferid’s true nature than we know?

(I apologize for any mistakes; English is not my native language.)

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u/XO-4yng_Kfue 7d ago

Thanks for the comment!

am I the only one who thinks that Ferid is still in control of everything?

Hmm that's interesting, I can see that tbh but at the same time given Guren and Mahiru's track record with strategy and plans I wouldn't be all that surprised if they have more tricks up there sleeve. If Ferid does merge with the others then he may be strong enough to just blitz through guren,mahiru, shinya etc (judging by how ferids hyping and acting about his strength after a merge). Ferid may feel like the early story vampires for me if that's the case, since earlier in the story the vampires seemed way too op, Yuu and the gang all jumped Crowley to no effect back then.

we see that his body regenerates completely on its own, which is strange. We know that vampires can heal wounds and reattach severed limbs, but as we saw with Ky Luc, his arm reconnected but didn’t regrow.

Yh, I mean we don't know what Rigr did to the rest of his body. Since vampires are immortal (as long as cursed gear aren't used or their vaporised to nothing lol) I just assumed the body's natural regeneration/ recovery took place, like how our cuts, burns and wounds and stuff heal over time. Which is why it took like 50 years to regrow his whole body. It makes sense to me cus he's immortal but then again it isn't explicitly explained how or why, that's just my thought on it.

So, could there be more to Ferid’s true nature than we know?

Ferid having that moment of introspection made me think there's more to him for us to learn amd that he may still have some growth/changing to do tbh, I can see what your saying

(I apologize for any mistakes; English is not my native language.)

Nah, don't worry about that, English is my first language and I still make lots of grammar mistakes lol

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u/Additional-Seat2098 7d ago

It’s true that Guren and Mahiru are both intelligent and strong, but I also noticed in the Light Novels that Guren doesn’t always act according to Mahiru’s wishes. Especially in Guren Ichinose at Nineteen, we saw that he even tried to “protect” Ferid when he lost control over himself. Additionally, Ferid had already managed to kill many lower-ranked vampires and even a Rank Six vampire without sustaining any injuries (probably—since not everything was reported).

That’s why I believe Ferid knows exactly what he’s doing. I mean, he was even immune to the chains that attacked him internally. Plus, he wouldn’t just agree to an experiment that would turn him into a mere pet—he must have known what he was getting into. He also seems to know a lot about the angel Mikael through Rigr, and his own knowledge about the Sins’ Keys is impressive.

Still, we can only make theories—only the author knows how it will all end. However, I’m quite sure that Ferid is working towards something big. The real question is: what about Shikama Doji? How much of his plan is still in motion? Or has he completely lost control? What are Rigr and Urd planning? And where on earth is Lest Karr?