013 | Teresa of the Faint Smile 02

[priscilla]

Summary First Appearance: Rig, and a bunch of other bandits. Worst night... ever? The chapter opens with black panels as someone reminisces. Early in life, this person had considered her best feature to be her long black hair, but the people she trusted sold her to the Organization, and she lost everything. Her choices were simply to die as a beggar or allow herself to be used by the Organization. She was not a unique case - everyone who joined was the same way. The Organization does not receive volunteers. So her body was cut open, and she became something nonhuman. Her black hair and black eyes - all the color in her body - drained away and she became... The thoughts are revealed to be those of Teresa as she lies in her innroom, trying to sleep. However, she finds it impossible to relax in a soft bed, and ultimately puts her uniform back on and drives her blade into the floor, resting against its blade - the only way she knows how to relax, these days. An inn worker arrives to offer her dinner, but Teresa slices the door in half and announces that she's leaving. As she heads out, a villager attempts to offer her all the funds they've collected to pay her for killing the yoma, but Teresa refuses it - the job came from another village, which is good for this one, because the charge for killing one yoma would be ten times what they've gathered... and since there were seven, it would be seven times more on top of that. Just the kind of greeting you want from a potential guardian! Suddenly, she notices a little girl - the child who was with the yoma earlier - tugging on her cape. Teresa yanks it free, knocking the child down and asks if that is the child of the last yoma she killed. The villagers explain that the girl isn't from this town, and probably wasn't related to the yoma, but they can't say for certain because the girl can't speak. They believe the yoma was forcing her to follow him around... and they believe this because her body is covered in scars from many brutal beatings. Hearing this, Teresa decides that the girl must see her as a savior, and corrects the assumption - she's just here to kill yoma because it's her job, not because she wants to save anyone. But the girl stands, and hugs Teresa around the leg... prompting Teresa to kick her away. Still, the girl stands and insistently comes after Teresa, attempting to cling to her. Teresa kicks her away again while the uncomfortable villagers watch, or look away. Finally, Teresa decides to leave, telling them that she believes the last yoma wasn't actually part of her job, but she won't charge them for him since she just did whatever she felt like. The speed of a truly powerful Claymore. Later, Teresa has made camp in the forest, resting against her sword... and the girl proves to have been following her, watching from afar. Suddenly, Teresa disappears, and reappears behind the girl, sword resting beside the girl's head. Expressionlessly, Teresa tells the girl again that she isn't a savior, and was only doing her job, and while she is impressed with the girl's strength in following her, she doesn't like tagalongs and isn't looking for a pet. She offers to kill the girl right there... but ultimately pushes her out of harms way, when they find themselves surrounded by what appears at first to be a group of yoma... but quickly proves to be a band of human bandits. One of them grabs the girl, and Teresa lops his hand off at mid-forearm, but quickly realizes this situation is bad news. Teresa drives off her assailants via body horror. The bandits quickly realize what she is, but Teresa simply suggests that they tend to their amputated friend before he loses too much blood. But the bandit leader doesn't care if he dies - he's too interested in Teresa herself, and her exceptional beauty. One of the bandits warns him not to push a "silver-eyed slayer," but he has a bit of knowledge about the soldiers... including their number one rule: they are not permitted to kill a human for any reason, even by accident. A Claymore that is found responsible in the death of a human is subject to a death sentence, and the other soldiers will come and take her head. A rule like that, he says, is the only way humans have come to trust the Claymores at all. This emboldens the bandits, who decide to band together and rape Teresa, but Teresa is mostly just amused, noting that if that's all they wanted they could have just said so. She then tears open her uniform, exposing her body... and the infamous deformities/scars that mar every soldier's body. The sight of it is enough to repel the bandits, who drag their injured member, Rig, away even as Rig himself swears revenge. In the resulting silence, Teresa once again tells the little girl to get lost - she's a monster, and cannot be a babysitter. Notes and Comments 01. In this chapter, we learn where the Organization gets their soldiers: betrayed children who are sold to the Organization or otherwise cast out. Teresa, herself, appears to have been one of the children sold... in her case, by those she trusted, although it's unclear whether this means her family or the town she lived in as a child. We also learn the reason for Clare's coloring, and of course Teresa's as well - the hybridization process appears to leech the color from a person's body, leaving them pale haired and silver-eyed. It might be a little ungrateful to question the pricing on superwomen, but still. 02. The price of hiring a Claymore is touched on in this chapter... and while one might think a village would be happy to pay it, it later becomes apparent that the extraordinary expense is at least partially to blame for the bad reputation the warriors have. More on this in a few chapters. 03. Teresa's coldness and cruelty directly echoes Clare's relationship to Raki... as is obviously the point. It seems as though, between taking on Teresa's flesh, mimicking Teresa's fighting style and copying Teresa's treatment of her, Clare is keeping Teresa alive in herself... as well as walking many of the same roads her mentor/guardian had. They even speak many of the same lines. If this were the case with all soldiers, it would simply imply a lack of personality diversification, but it's really only Clare and Teresa who behave this way, which seems to imply that it's more about Clare following in Teresa's footsteps than anything else. It's also not surprising, given that Clare essentially dedicated her life to mourning and avenging Teresa's loss. 04. The nature of Clare's relationship to the yoma is... unclear, but given later comments regarding awakened beings, at least, and their treatment of certain soldiers, it seems possible that she was raped as well as beaten. This, too, helps to explain some of her tendency to turn off emotionally and physically. Teresa's tsundere nature is revealed when she defends the girl she just threatened to kill! 04. However, as cold as Teresa can be, and as much as she plays with the perception of herself as heartless and willing to kill even a small child, her true nature is revealed in her instinctive defense of Clare from the bandits. 05. Speaking of the bandits, given that our previous experience with the strength of a Claymore is from Clare alone, and that Teresa is surrounded by probably dozens of men (I count 20 onscreen, but there may be more offscreen, as evidenced by the the few who are visible offpanel only by their feet or the tops of their heads), it's easy to assume that Teresa's concern about the situation becoming bad comes out of fear for her life. But, of course, we later realize that stomping this band is about as difficult for her as stepping on an ant colony is for a human. It is, therefore, more likely that she's simply concerned that Rig's severed arm will end up killing him, and getting her into a bad position with the Organization. 06. What is going on with a warrior's torso? The manga never does clear that up, although it's obviously hideous enough to prevent Father Vincent from treating Clare with her shirt removed, and to scare a group of bandits off of sexual assault. Whatever the scar looks like, it can't protrude, as we see Claymores from the side all the time (both dressed and undressed)... and it can't be overly large, because we've seen so much of their torsos in the past, as well. Some suggestions have been - the head of a yoma, an endlessly unclosed wound, rotted flesh, etc. Open wounds seem reasonable, especially given the ease with which Ophelia retrieves some of Clare's blood in later chapters. Chapter 127 throws another kink into the wheel when we hear references to 'treated' vs. 'untreated' physical states, thus implying that there is something done to the wound post-hybridization that makes it less disturbing in some form. Still, it remains a mystery. It is known, however, that an awakened being is without scars - much like their hair, their body returns to its natural state. Fact-Checking This? Arguably bullshit. 01. Claymores are not permitted to kill humans, on penalty of death. This is the only way they have of making humanity trust them. The first part is absolutely true. However, there are ways around it. For example... if there aren't any witnesses, one can get away with it (see: Ophelia). There is also the option of being so badass that you're impossible to execute... but that isn't the most reliable method of avoiding death. The reason behind the rule, however, is more questionable - was it truly done to win the trust of the public? If so, it doesn't seem to have worked. Another potentially valid theory would be that the Organization put it in to maintain the facade of a benevolent group both to the human public and to the soldiers themselves. By refusing to allow soldiers to kill, they can assure the warriors that their purpose truly is the defense of humanity rather than simply the advancement of the Organization's goals. ☩ ☩ ☩ Back