Necro Queen
Wow, I really shouldn't have come in here since I only read through volume 5. It's my own stupid fault, though, so now I just feel really dumb. Anyway, no that I've already dug a hole for myself, why not spoil myself some more?! I just have some questions about Jizabel that have left me and others I know befuddled.
1) Is Jizabel completely male? I remember that he has his sisters' organs, according to Alexis, but could that mean se organs, or other organs that all humans have?
2) (this could be more opinion than fact) Does Jizabel end up being the corrupted kind individual Cassian sees him as, or does he stick to his insane persona until the very end?
3) Is his name really supposed to be Jizabel or Jezebel? In the actual manga, it's spelled Jizabel, but I seem to be the only one who spells his name like that when talknig about the series. I'm just wondering if it's some tranlsation problem, a scanlation error, or people just seeing the J-bel and seeing "Jezebel". I know that does happen, because my name is Bethany, and I get called Brittany more times than one would ever think possible (gotta love the B-any messup).
1) Hahaha...Jezebel was a frail, gentle child, but it seemed Alexis was taking care of him, grooming him pretty much to be what Cain ultimately was to Delilah.
In his own really incredibly messed up way, I think Alexis loved Jezebel...but Augusta was manipulating him from the start.
Alexis killed Jezebel's sisters for transplant organs for Jezebel because he was sick all the time.
I don't think the reproductive organs were one of the things that was causing Jezebel to be sick ^_^; So no, Jezebel is still biologically male.
Eventually, Cain was born and Jezebel seemed to be cast aside. He learned of what happened to his sisters, he learned of what he was to his father, and he learned about the birth of brother, Cain. He put all his rage and hatred onto his brother thinking that without Cain, he would have been loved by Alexis most.
2) Jezebel was never really that nuts. He was just an angry, sad person. I think he convinced himself that he could do these horrible things to people because they were worthless to him, and he felt he himself was a worthless person.
But we can see his true colors show throughout the series.
He loved animals as a child, and still does as he treats them with an incredible compassion he doesn't have for people. He brings back the puppy that Michaela savagely killed. He later humanely euthanizes it, knowing that prolonging the dog's life like that is unnatural and cruel.
He administers Riff's drugs to keep him going, and goes out of his way to deliver the drugs to Riff, it doesn't look like Alexis is telling him to because in one scene Alexis steps in and stops him from doing so and Jezebel is surprised.
Of course it was Alexis' order to even create the Deadly Dolls in the first place, but Jezebel carries out his duties on his own warped initiative. He does it for his father's love, which is really all he wants.
Cassandra is able to manipulate Jezebel because of what he knows about him. Cassandra's Hierophant position in Delilah allowed him to look into Jezebel's deepest, darkest secrets, fears and memories of his past when Jezebel went through the initiation into the Major Arcana. He uses this information to mess with Jezebel in attempts to make Jezebel his puppet.
Jezebel just about almost gives in until the end until Cassian comes in and saves Jezebel at the cost of mortally wounding himself.
Jezebel's compassion shows when he saves Cassian by transplanting Cassian's brain into Cassandra's grown up body (thus granting Cassian life as well as his deepest wish...a mature body that grows and ages). He then lets Cassian go into the world without question or askance of his further service or thanks. We don't hear back from Cassian again until the finale of the series, which is when Jezebel makes his ultimate sacrifice.
3) I say its Jezebel, a name taken straight from the Bible as many of the other names in the series were. Jizabel is just WEIRD. Its not a real name, Jezebel is. In a story RIFE with Biblical references, why would Jezebel be the exception?
Yes, the katakana in the original Japanese volumes would LITERALLY translate to "Jizabel" but consider how hard and awkward it would be to write "Jezebel" in Japanese phonetics.
Jizabel can be broken down into simple characters - Ji - za - be - ru
Jezebel cannot, it would have to be written like this - Ji - little subscript ye - ze (or za) - be - ru.
The subscript system to turn basic shi and ji sounds into other vowel sounds isn't technically officially recognized in printed Japanese, its more a pop cultural thing that shifts and changes to accomadate more foreign words, its a strange and awkward system at best, so when it can be avoided, it usually is.
Was this a conscious choice Kaori Yuki made? Or did she really think the Biblical name "Jezebel" was "Jizabel", who knows. Sometimes foreign words are not transliterated sound for sound into Japanese, depending on the limits of the Japanese phonetic system's ability to support them.
