Paradise...Lost? Understanding the Ending to Wolf's Rain

You may not know this, but Wolf’s Rain is my favourite anime series. I say that having minimal understanding of the show’s symbolism, and I take issue with certain facets of its execution, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it before. However, what I’ve never gotten behind was the closing scene, literally the last 15 seconds of the final episode. At least, until recently. And let me explain why.

By the way, this contains spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the show yet…please do so first.


Anyway, the show follows the journey of four wolves, Kiba, Tsume, Hige and Toboe, and their journey to find “Paradise”. Paradise, according to the show, is a realm where the world, now corrupt and dying, begins anew, with everything being in perfect balance. Paradise also has a catch, as only wolves can open this world with the help of a gatekeeper named Cheza, who’s made of moonflowers. But all of that’s revealed over 30 episodes, so in the meantime it’s a race between the four wolves, three nobles and a group of humans to seek out this legendary, and possibly even mythical, Paradise and reap the rewards.

To keep a long story short, the wolves make their way to the mountaintop where Paradise is said to be opened, all the while most of them dying, until it’s only Kiba, a badly-injured Cheza and the series’s prime antagonist, Lord Darcia, struggling inside the mountain for the fate of the world. Darcia dies, Cheza wilts, Kiba is reborn and Paradise is opened. And then we see Darcia’s cursed eye poison a nearby flower and…we get a scene with Kiba running along the city streets like nothing happened.

End show.

My reaction in a nutshell. (Courtesy of Nick Zhukov.)

Yeah…words can’t express how pissed off I was by this. After thirty episodes, four of them pointless recaps, and an emotionally devastating finale, we arrived at the destination point and achieved our overall goal. We watched our favourite characters die at the hands of the villains. And now that we’re there, it was all a lie? What’s wrong with this show, jerking us around for nothing? What a rip!

Alas, I could find no resolution for this unsatisfactory conclusion. But the show had ended, so I was forced to come to terms with my disappointment; h*ll, in an unpublished collaboration with a fellow g1, I had this to say:
“That said, my final complaint with this show IS with the OVA, particularly with its final scene. Not because it's bad, it isn't, or because it's unnecessary, it isn't, but because it felt redundant. There was no need for the modern day setting to reinforce that Paradise doesn't really exist, the previous shot in the garden with that corrupted flower was more than enough to do the trick. I appreciate what they were getting at with it, but…meh.”
So yeah, not a happy camper. But then I went to hear a world-famous, Jewish speaker give a lecture at my synagogue. In his speech, he talked about the tragedy of living, and how it can be hard to handle the cruelty while maintaining love and optimism. And it hit me. After years of confusion and anger, the ending to Wolf’s Rain finally made sense:

Paradise doesn’t actually exist…at least, not in the conventional sense.

You might be thinking, “Well, you already acknowledged that, so why are you repeating yourself?” Think about it this way: Wolf’s Rain is a meta-textual series. This means that everything about it, be it characters’ names, the setting, in-show easter-eggs, lines of dialogue, the likes, is alluding to other works of art. In some cases, the events are even metaphors for something grander, like how Paradise is a metaphor for a state of being. A rather obscure, non-concrete metaphor, but a metaphor regardless.

So when a show mired in cold, detached subtlety, not unlike this one, decides to take its key idea, finding Paradise, and flip it on its head, it’s trying to establish something for the viewer. You might not get it right away, but that’s why it’s called “allusion”. Allusions are meant to be thought over and reflected upon, whereupon you better appreciate it in its proper context. In other words, the ending, like the show itself, means something.

Here’s my take: the ending is a reality check for how we view our own little utopias. You know how we always say, “In a perfect world, this would happen”? Well, that’s our projection of utopia on a less-than-perfect reality. Because, let’s face it, life sucks. It’s filled with hardships, bad stuff happens to good people, evil thrives, you get the gist. And we have to learn to accept that. But it’s hard, so we don’t.

And this is why, once we get glimmers of our utopian ideal, we’re disappointed. True, the element of expectation is important, overhype is always problematic, but disappointment is life getting in the way. It’s interesting that the show about hope in dark times would tackle something so harsh and sad as disappointment, as it spits in the face of Kiba’s ultimate desire. Remember, he has the first and final piece of dialogue in the entire show. Everything, essentially, revolves around him. And that dialogue is the most important piece of the puzzle:
“They say there's no such place... as Paradise. Even if you search to the ends of the Earth, there's nothing there. No matter how far you walk, it's always the same road. It just goes on and on. But, in spite of that... Why am I so driven to find it? A voice calls to me... It says, ‘Search for Paradise.’”
It sounds bizarre saying this, but of the four wolves, Kiba really has the most depth. Tsume’s arc, while interesting, is really “lone wolf learns the value of camaraderie”. Toboe reaffirms what he already was: a loyal companion. Hige is the “traitor turned friend,” except that he doesn’t really develop until much later on. But Kiba has the biggest turn-around, going from a loner with a strong desire for wolf’s pride, to a mellow pack leader, to the saviour of the world. He lives the longest, dies last and is the most active part of the final scene, running in the streets while his friends sit on the sidelines. He’s also the anchor of the show’s theme of finding a better world than the current one.

So how fitting it is that reality gets the final say, not him, no? Yes, he has the closing monologue, and yes, it’s his story. But reality doesn’t care. You may think you’re in control of everything you do, but are you really? Can you control your birth gender? Who your parents are? Your birth name? Even the exact second at which you’re going to die?

The real fallacy of living, I think, is believing that everything that happens to you is in your control. It’s not. And while our hopes and dreams for a perfect, utopian world can’t be met, it’s to be expected. That’s why it’s a utopia. You can fight and die for it, but it’s your own, unrealistic utopia. And reality has no time for that.

But the beauty of the ending, I think, is arguing that that’s okay. So your perfect world can’t happen, so what? Does that mean you can’t have hope anyway? Does that mean you can’t find a glimmer of utopia? I think you can. And given that wolves are revered as a sign of hope in Japan, that wolves are the only ones allowed to open Paradise, let-alone survive in it, is indicative of that.

Besides, Paradise isn’t only an entity. It’s a concept. It’s a concept that signifies that hope never dies, even in times of despair. Because if you can find something hopeful in this world, even in times of disarray, to cling onto, then you know something? That’s Paradise. And I think that’s what Wolf’s Rain was trying to say with its closing scene…

Either that, or I’m reading too much into this ending and it legitimately sucks. You be the judge.

Comments

  1. I truly like your interpretation. While getting consumed by this series, I was rather shocked about the ending. Since the start, I believed that they will all end up in paradise. And within the last 3 episodes, everyone died. What irony. If I compare it with my initial ending, my "utopia", I feel almost naive. After such a long journey, I am shocked about Darcia´s eye, turning world to hell. I, like you, believe that the blossoming flower in the city has something to do with feeding us some hope, creating a parallel universe in which paradise can be found this time. Something like an alternative ending, setting it to zero. The disbelief you gained after watching the series about getting a happy ending, however, is enormous. After what Kiba said, that there is nothing but the long path that has no end, I do not think that there will be paradise waiting for them. But, still, there is always the small voice in my head that says "maybe it will though". Is this the reason why some people keep going? Although they experienced so much sorrow? I really wonder

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    1. It's interesting because the concept of "Paradise" as a literal manifestation may be impossible, but the metaphorical component is tangible. And even then, the struggle of finding paradise is what really matters, even if it's achieved through pain and grief.

      It's almost comparable to, assuming you don't mind me going Biblical, the reason why Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. That would've been the ideal place for them to live, but their very existence would've been meaningless had they stayed. They had to appreciate struggle to experience joy, and that meant exposing them to the harsh realities of the world. I think Wolf's Rain's ending is similar to that...

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  2. there's a lot of future talk in this show too... First (and most important I think) is when Kiba meets Darcia for the first time, Darcia asks Kiba what dose he hope to find in Paradise. Kiba says a future, not hope or despair. just a future. and then in one of the lasts episode Darcias talks about his vision of paradise "it has neither perfect happiness nor joy nor life. This is because it also does not contain perfect sadness nor misery nor death."

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    1. Interesting. I'll have to keep that in mind when I rewatch the show for the fourth time...

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  3. I know what the Anime try too say me, but the Message is not so deep. I know it before, so it was simple for me too understand his Meaning.
    I want too say what I dont like the Charakters, and the Story. I heard good things about it and I accepted the Seting and Charakterdesign, because Streampunk isnt my thing.
    But in the End, this Anime gives me nothing too remember. The Villian starts as a Guy what want too save his Girlfriend. But why he dont cooperate, and why he still try too reach his Goal after his big lost. All Maincharakters are 2Dimensional and dont evolv in the Story. Tsume had Problems, because he cant go good whit Humans, but this its. We dont see much Backstory and the Charakters dont evolve much. The Flowermaiden. The Maiden is one of the Worst Charakters in the Show. A Mairy Sue+Damsel in Distress. She is captured multible Times, and some Parts of the Story about her arent necressary. Then shes caughted again Instantly dont free her in the first Place.
    The Charakterdeads are also very inconsistent. How often Shoot someone at the Wolfs, ore Humans? they put all important Deads in the last couple of Episodes. And Kiba survive a Headshot, so why died some of the Charakters so easly. And why use the Group allways her Human Form, even when no one is around?
    Oh and the 4 Pointless Recapepisodes. For me, as a Watcher what goes too the Show and hadnt any prejudice it was just noting. It was boring, not logical and try to be deap.

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    1. I'm sorry to hear that the show didn't click, but I still think it's excellent. Except for the recaps, although they only exist because of behind-the-scenes complications...

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    2. Actually, it's because the BONES studio was put on a hiatus, for weeks because of the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic.

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  4. Just finished my 4th rewatch too, so we're in the same boat. This time though, I'm a bit older than the three previous times, and its renewed impact on me was a pleasant surprise. The points you make in your analysis of the ending definitely resonate with the feeling I've gotten this time watching the show. I use the word “feeling” purposely here, because it seems to me that the channel for Wolf's Rain's message is decidedly not intellectual but emotional.

    The abundance of symbolism, reinforced by the mythology based around wolfs, moon, flowers, transformation and spirit, all make sense in the show's setting as long as a detail revealed by an unknown speaker at the beginning of OVA1 is accepted: “The world has been destroyed and reborn countless times, always resurrecting from the ashes as Paradise” (2017 BD english dub, from a voice that suspiciously sounds like the Owl Spirit). Cheza reiterates the same idea to Hubb in OVA2: “[The world] will not end. It will simply begin again. It is so that it can be reborn”.

    Paradise is the rebirth of the world, and with it the hope that the next will be better. In Wolf's Rain, the world is a living entity about to die from all the evil that has been inflicted to it, and Cheza implies that it has happened before. Before the world dies, the flower and the wolf are drawn to each other and, channeling the moon's power as allies, make the world reborn by returning it to a blank slate and avoid its definite destruction.

    After Darcia's death, Cheza knows that Kiba and her have failed to prepare a Paradise without evil, but they still managed to prevent the world from dying: life and flowers will bloom again. She tells Kiba, before returning to flowers: “So when the world is reborn, when Paradise opens, we will meet again. This one will be waiting for you, find this one.”, and finally, not able to finish her sentence: “And next time, the Paradise you hoped for will be...”, implying she still hopes they will be able to open a world where evil does not exist anymore.

    Then as Paradise opens, a pure world unfolds over the ruins of the previous one. Cheza's fear comes true as it is instantly corrupted by the evil contained in Darcia's wolf eye, foreshadowing a path for the next world similar in essence to the one that led their current one to its end. The epilogue's world, which we've seen in the opening sequence since the first episode, is most likely also coming to an end, and the wolf and flower are drawn to another once again. This might have happened several times before, according to the Own Spirit.

    The ending brilliantly succeeds at conveying the single most important theme of the show: hope. Wolf's Rain was a story about death and grief as much as it was about purpose and hope. The wolves, Cheza, Quentin, Cher, Hubb and even Darcia are all coping with the grief of their world dying and their imminent death in whatever way they can. They have nothing left behind, and nothing ahead but the hope of new possibilities. When Kiba starts running, at the end of the series, the new voyage begins, and with it, hope that this time, Paradise will really be paradise.

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    1. This was amazing. Thank you .

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    2. I totally agree!
      I would only add that the speaker at the beginning of OVA1 is Darcia the First and according to some interpretations, the owl is his spirit of a sort.

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  5. I just want to say after reading everyone else's responses, I
    That for whatever reason am reminded of the Gaia theory. That's all I have to say about this show, and that on my 5th rewatch, I'm still learning new things about Wolf's Rain.

    Keep it alive!

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  6. I really didn't understand what was Darcia's deal. He lost his love, so he goes and destroys her murderer, so far I follow. Now he's got really nothing left, so why does he become the villain then? He's got no reason to desire "paradise" at this point. His love is lost, he had his revenge, he's got no drive, no reason to live. Even less reasons to turn into a wolf and fuck up the day. He knows Kiba will open paradise anyways, why does he insist on doing it himself? Why does he care?
    Then he implies that he manipulated Kiba's life for this very moment, that he burned his pack and made him what he is... but why? And how does that fit with the original plan he had to save his love?
    This character just made no sense at all in the last few episodes, maybe he just completely lost his marbles.

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    1. My best guess is that he was always evil, but the death of Lady Homina just made him even more evil...

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    2. I have a theory on Darcia. He wanted an end. An end to his life, to his pain, to everything that he knew and experienced in life. The death of his love and that he could not save her messed him up badly. Yes, he did get his revenge, but as the old saying goes "when on the path of revenge, dig two graves". Revenge will not make you happy or fulfill you in any way. It will only leave you more empty which is what happened. Darcia got even and yet.....he was still in pain, still heartbroken and hurt. His love was still dead and he still had the emptiness inside. So he turned to another idea to end his pain.....opening paradise. Darcia's idea of paradise was that of a release. An end to his family curse, to his life, to his memories, everything. Paradise to him has no true sadness or true pain. Darcia seeks not just a death, but an end.
      Someone that desperate to end it all can be dangerous. They know no consequence or fear, they just keep coming. No matter the cost.
      By the end of the show, Darcia had long since lost it. His mind was completely gone. All that was left to him.....was paradise.

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    3. I guess that makes him a tragic villain, then? Thanks for the insight!

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  7. I know this is old but I just finished watching the show, yet again, and decided to go see what others had said about it. I wanna say that the ending to me is unsatisfying not in it's message but it's delivery. It just doesn't have enough meat, to me. It was too short, with not enough wrap up. But I love the "what happened after!?" stuff a lot, so that's personal preference, I know.

    I think the point about wolves as symbols of hope is so important. When Darcia is talking about wolves who left their old identity behind to become human he's talking about those who had lost hope. If you notice, everyone in the world is stagnant. They are either stuck, or content with where they are in life. To be clear, being content does not mean they are happy, only that they do not care enough to change, or seek change. Thus, they are stagnant. Hubb loves Cher but her obsession with her work destroyed their marriage. Instead of trying to change it, or make it better, because he had no "real" hope (I know he always says he hopes they'll get back together, but he doesn't really seem to actually believe this or at least to believe it enough to do anything to make it happen) so he doesn't even try. Quent has no hope for himself or a future, so he doesn't try to change his life or do something about his rage and hatred. I think Quent, too, is sort of representative of racism in his blind hatred of wolves. Instead, even after knowing the wolves didn't cause his pain, he continues to blame them rather than try to change, or hope for a better future, and because it’s easier for him to think another species (racism symbolism here) like wolves did it, rather than believe humans did it. Moreover he repeatedly refers to wolves as monsters and violent, etc. Darcia might wish for Hamona back, but even he is stagnant, unable to move forward in his life because he's stuck looking backward at what was. Jagara is stuck with her unrequited love of Darcia. Tsume is stuck believing he is nothing more than a traitor and that his life will never get better. Hige is stuck in his denial of his past actions. Toboe is stuck with his guilt and grief and can't move on or grow up, even going so far as to accidentally cause MORE harm because he will not and cannot confront his mistake. I could go on. Basically every character is more "going through the motions" than really living their life, forging a new path, or trying to better the world around them. None of them seem to believe the world CAN be better, and they don't try. Jagara's dome residents are the most extreme example of this.

    But Kiba represents pure hope. And as the other characters meet and interact with him, he pulls them along in his wake, and he awakens in them a spark of life that they did not formerly possess. They begin to hope, and as they hope they start to change. Tsume starts to realize he is worthy and that he can be close to people, and he starts to become truly brave instead of pretending to be brave. Toboe comes to terms with his guilt and his grief and instead focuses on his new family, and he starts to mature and grow up. Hige confronts his past crimes and focuses on bettering himself and taking actions to make up for the wrong he's done. Blue realizes she's a wolf, and that she can truly be there for the remaining family she has. Cher and Hubb are able to reconnect and come back together, and change their focus from their own internal obsessions outward and to helping others. Quent is able to finally face reality, and forgive the wolves, and dies with his arm around Toboe, letting love back into his heart and accepting the wolves for who and what they are, rather than his own perception of what he saw them as.

    Kiba and Cheza represent hope, life, and LOVE. And not necessarily romantic love, but ALL forms of love. The love of friends, family, companions, the pack, and yes romantic love, too.

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    1. They are a figurative Adam and Eve, and I'd guess that the reason we see Kiba's old body thaw and fall into the water when the world leaves it's ice age, born again, is because he's the first wolf, and Cheza is the “first” flower, and since the dawning of their world they have been there at the beginning together, and so must be again. Their love was probably the first love ever on the planet, and they probably try to find each other every time it's reborn. And when he falls into the water his body is shown surrounded by the "seed" (literal offspring) of Cheza, who fundamentally represents life and literal birth/rebirth. And since Cheza clearly reproduces asexually you could say that ALL lunar flowers ARE Cheza. Direct copies of her. Kiba's hope and love protected Cheza so that she could reseed the world, literally. I don't think he's truly "alive" when he thaws at the end and looks at the sky, but I think some part of his spirit remains so that when he's reborn into the world he will have a ghost of memory or pull to guide him back again. That voice he hears in his head, “find paradise” is, I suspect, his own. And it's not even Cheza, herself, as we think of her, specifically, because as she points out she is an artificial flower, and was never meant to take such a form. But instead she represents ALL lunar flowers, and their ability to, apparently, seed life. His love for Cheza is representative of his love for life itself, which is why I say it's not really a romantic type of love. Life and hope and all forms of love.

      As for Darcia’s eye? Cheza knows that things did not go the “right” way for the next rebirth, and that the next “paradise” is not the one Kiba hoped for. But it does seem to be heavily implied that they’re going to try again, and again, and again. The idea seems to be that each rebirth of the world is a little different, and that each time the world opens it is getting close to the fully realized paradise. In essence the world IS paradise, and the “road” to paradise is the choices and decisions that humanity makes along the way. Thus paradise is both already where everyone is, and also where they are not yet. Physically they are in paradise, but spiritually/emotionally/mentally they are not ready to accept paradise for what it is and thus cannot reach it because they cannot see it for what it is. Darcia, and Darcia’s eye, seem to be representative of all the evils in the world. Pride and greed, stagnation and selfishness, self serving and selfish love, etc... Jagara has the right of it when she accuses Darcia of keeping Hamona’s body alive for all the wrong reasons. Instead of grieving for her, and accepting her death, and keeping her memory alive for the appreciation of, and hope for, love, he desecrates her memory and twists his love for her into an excuse for his own evils. He perverts the idea of love, and it may be this was his fate all along. It may be that he was given the wolf’s eye not at all because of his ancestor, as he believes, but because he represents the antithesis of all that Kiba represents. In other words, much as Kiba might represent (or actually BE) the first wolf, and the embodiment of hope, Darcia might be the first “sin” or evil, and represent despair or forlorn hope. His wolf eye is the same color as Kiba’s wolf eyes, and his human eye is the same color as Kiba’s human eyes. ALL the other wolves have the same eye color regardless of if they are in human or wolf form, but Kiba doesn’t. Darcia’s wolf fur is the opposite of Kiba, though. They share traits and features, but the fur color might be a metaphor for their different natures. Both are men seeking Cheza, and paradise, but their reasons for it are different, and where Kiba hopes, Darcia despairs. The entire reason he’s even there at the ending is because, for him, since he cannot have Hamona, and thus to his mind, hope, then no one should have hope. He wants to strip Kiba of everything, as Darcia himself believes he was stripped.

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    2. I’d also like to note that Darcia’s presence is, itself, interesting. After Cheza jumps from his ship? He crashes. The ship BLOWS UP. How is he even alive? And the next time we see him is when Cher visits his family’s GRAVEYARD, where he just happens to be with no explanation for why he is there, how he got there, how he survived the crash of his ship, or anything. It may be Darcia isn’t even truly alive, anymore, not really. He may very well have died when the ship crashed, he might now simply be an entity of despair and death. Despite only recently taking a wolf’s form at the very end of the series, he is faster and stronger than the others, who are USED to being wolves. For some reason he is somehow a better fighter than all of them, despite spending almost his entire life as a human. I think the only reason that can be is because he isn’t truly alive, anymore. He is aware, somehow, of the lunar flower path the wolves witness, for example, even though he isn’t even there. I think this is because he is now a spirit, and not a living person. He knows things he shouldn’t be able to know, and always seems to be able to find the wolves. When Jagara bombs Darcia’s keep, it explodes as he’s holding Hamona’s body. Yet, AGAIN, he doesn’t perish. How? He might be the embodiment of death, not despair, or both. I don’t know. But there are multiple times he should be dead and yet comes back again, not even injured. Kiba and the others suffer injuries throughout the series, but Darcia survives some weird shit. At one point, too, he tells Kiba that Kiba is chosen “as well”, implying that Darcia himself is ALSO chosen. This may actually be true, and not just a prideful boast of Darcia’s. Also with Hamona’s physical body dead, Darcia blatantly says that he no longer loves her, thus proving the hollowness of his own love, and he seems to believe that even her soul is gone forever. Regardless of if that is true or not, however, he discards his love for her and her memory easily.

      A possible explanation regarding the Darcia/Kiba dynamic is they may represent the struggle of good and evil forces in the world. Though Kiba “won” in this version of the world, Darcia’s taint is not totally erased in the next. It’s possible that if Darcia had won, the world would still have been reborn (though he didn’t want it to be) and that the world would have come back, somewhat worse and darker, and Kiba instead might have left behind something of himself, of hope, for that next world. So perhaps the struggle of rebirth is a tipping of scales, and Kiba’s paradise may yet someday exist if “good” can keep winning out over “evil” enough times. It may even be that the world shown in most of the show is, itself, a result of a “bad” world rebirth in which a previous incarnation of Kiba lost that time around. Or it could just be that the world is simply devastated because of time and entropy and I’m reading too much into it. Here I’m just wildly guessing at possibilities.

      The nobles seem to embody the bad aspects of human nature. Pride, greed, jealousy, despair, war, hatred, etc. The other main characters seem to represent some “good” aspect of human nature. (after their evolution from meeting Kiba) Cher and Hubb are romantic love. Blue is loyalty and the love of family, or found family. Hige is redemption and the idea that even people who have done wrong can change for the better. Toboe is innocence. Tsume is bravery. (I think Tsume is shown to be a deeply fearful individual, but only on the inside. He always hides it with false confidence and false bravado, when the reality is that he is afraid. Afraid to lose, to die, to be alone, to fail, etc.) But in the end, he dies to do what is right and helps, unlike in his past when he ran and was scarred for his actions of cowardice. Quent is forgiveness… etc.

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    3. I think there is a LOT left unexplained, though, such as why the nobles even existed as a story element. Their role could have been done differently and to the same effect, if my theories are remotely correct. It felt like a lot of importance was put on the history of the nobles and the mural of the spaceship and the story that “this world” was not their world seemed to imply they had come to this world from another, and not simply that they were from a previous version of this world. But that was never addressed/explained or even referenced again. IF it really is the case that the nobles are from another planet, then it could be that paradise IS the planet itself, and the noble’s presence has corrupted a “perfect” world. I remember in part of the lore they talk about the monsters that came to the world and wolves were released to fight the monsters. It might even explain why wolves created humans. It could have been that they chose to birth a race that looked similar to the nobles, for some reason or another. Also, at one point it is revealed that Jagara has been systematically capturing and killing wolves and *drinking their blood* so it’s possible that they really ARE aliens to the planet and perhaps they ARE the “monsters” the wolves were released to fight.

      The whole nobles and spaceship mural throw a big ol kink into my primary theory, and I don’t like it. It could be that it;s just a story the nobles came up with over time, but I highly doubt it. The spaceship mural really bugs me, even now...

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    4. This is fucking fantastic thank you for this thread

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  8. I think that there is definitely an element of realisation at the end that 'paradise' doesn't really exist and that it is subjective but I think that the ending purposely represents a perfect sense of sadness and hope. First of all, the fact that literally everyone dies and none of them ever actually reach paradise sets the last 4 episodes up to be a devastating 1 hour 20 minutes but then, as Kiba watches the red moon turn normal again and it begins to rain, hope is found and, even though they won't be able to experience it themselves, the world is reborn for others to try again.
    When you see Kiba again walking through a modern day Japanese city, my first thought was that the world is in a constant loop. We are stuck repeatedly starting with paradise, slowly developing then gradually destroying the world, causing the dystopian future that you see the show focus around, leading someone trying to find paradise so that the world can restart again. Of course, I'm not sure if this interpretation is right! What I gathered from the show is that what we just watched will one day be repeated again so that the world can return back to paradise. The fact that Darcia's eye is seen in the final scene of 'paradise' proves this, that the world will always be corrupt and paradise will never be sustained. The world will eventually go to ruin again and a wolf (a representation of hope) must 'find paradise' and start all over again. Any thoughts on this??

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  9. It’s crazy you posted this years ago and we’re still discussing it. I love it!

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    1. I know.

      But be prepared for my images to disappear soon, because Photobucket sucks!

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    2. Why not rehost them elsewhere?

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    3. It was a pain re-hosting images on my other Blog back in 2016, and I have a lot more content here.

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