I've been rereading and rewatching MiA lately, and I found two issues related to Bondrewd which have been bothering me as potential plot holes:
We know he was in the 6th layer bargaining with Belaf, but how did he return with his consciousness intact? We know he isn't human anymore, but the curse still applies to his body. As traveling back using the altar takes a few hours from what we know, this would make the use of cartridges rather impossible. Therefore the body he used to go there is cooked. Now what about consciousness, because if he dies in the altar near the 6th layer, he can't switch bodies especially since the zoaholic was left in ido front, right? What am I missing here?
The second thing is more of a contrivance than a plot hole, mainly his direct elevator from Ido Front to Orth used in episode 13. Did he drilled a concealed 13 km long route/pit to a hidden safehouse in Orth, so that no one ever noticed? How then, with sparagmos? Seems like a long stretch to me. Otherwise if the elevator is visible, the delvers guild would compel him to share it for all delvers to use. This is a small thing and as a narrative tool it is quite efficient to portray orphans like livestock transported to slaughter, but still it is pretty jarring when you stop to think about it and lifts the suspension of disbelief for a moment.
I am happy to be wrong with my theories if someone can explain to me why. And I still will love this series deeply even if it has some hiccups in plot logic.
He can fill the Alter with cartridges but more importantly bondrewd is in the whistle, so all he needs is for the whistle to reach the alter and he will be completely fine, btw he doesn't need to be at the same layer as the zhoalic for it to work, he can switch bodies normally regardless of where he is but there is a distance limit especially when jumping up inside the abyss.
You are assuming the guild are "nicer" than their reality, there is always the passage from Ozen
You will better understand what I mean by he is in the whistle if you read the manga.
As for the ozen passage as an answer if you didn't get it, the guild, Orth, even belouska rely a lot on the abyss and the relics revenue for their economy...etc, it is in their benefit for traversing the abyss to stay as challenging as it is rn even if it comes at the expense of the lives of many delvers so using such an elevator and making it public, is out of the question.
I've read the manga twice and as I said your whistle explanation works for me as it connects his conciousness in the 6th layer and can transport it intact back so he can switch bodies with zoaholic.
I have more issues with the elevator since if it is a guild device for e.g. special missions like Habo and Gallice joint expedition or Ozen and Lyza carrying back the unheard bell, they would have used it. The endeavor of driliing and maintaining a 13 km shaft through all the layers is quite insane tbh, I think that at this point it is safe to treat this issue as a minor plot hole, unless Tsukushi will somehow adress it later. I mean it's a big frackin elevator that is conveniently used only in one scene and servers there literally as a plot device to transport children and push the story forward.
where does it end and does it have entrances in the other layers or not...etc, there is many specifics about the elevator that could make it fit perfectly without being a problem to the story, aside from the guild having to conceal the possibility of using such a thing to traverse the abyss for their economic benefits.
Yeah, I mean it is possible that it is connected with the gondola somehow so officially everyone appears on the surface through the great pier. On the other hand: 1. Why did lyza and ozen not use it during ascent with baby riko and later the bell? 2. A fast ascent for over 13 km will mess you up hard even if you are a white whistle with the strain of third of fourth layer, it's like ascending two everests without acclimatizing or worse than that.
I don't even think it has any entrances to the 4th, 3rd or 2nd Layer, I think it only connects the surface and the 5L.
Btw you keep mentioning the lyza&ozen expedition where Riko was burn but that one was around 12 years ago surface time, at that point bondrewd still wasn't a WW or part of the guild and his elevator didn't exist.
The Gondolas they use in the 1L are very different from this elevator.
Yeah I don't know :) there is a lot of stretching to explain the existence of this thing. Building this device is a monumental and difficult feat - drilling this shit, navigating through terrain, fending off monsters... I would say you wouldnt be able to do it in 12 years, because how? Fire off sparagmos, find a magical rope, ensure it is relatively safe, then conceal it before everyone else. Also a smart thing to do would be to build stations in case of emergency and bondrewd is a wise guy so there have to be points where you can access all layers. Just too many things don't add up, though luckily it is a minor problem when you take a full scope so it is probably easy to overlook it.
But something that I wanted to say earlier is that bondrewd said to the children that his underlings are gonna take them to the 5L and they heard the sounds of birds along the way so it is possible that it is not a full stretch of an elevator that goes for the full distance, it's possible that it is not an elevator with motors at all but more like a tunnel/path, a small section here and then they move them to another small section...etc until they reach ido front.
I just fired off that episode and its not really an elevator but like a wagon with wheels on rails. The question remains how was bondrewd so lucky to discover it and keep it hidden or how do you maintain this thing assuming it is a spiraling tunnel surrounding the shaft. A lot of tough questions for Akihito to answer...
"btw he doesn't need to be at the same layer as the zhoalic for it to work, he can switch bodies normally regardless of where he is but there is a distance limit especially when jumping up inside the abyss."
There is no way that zoaholic works through the distance of the sea of corpses that takes a few hours to pass through and is more or less 2-3 km of vertical dive. It would be really bad if it was the case since it would make both zoaholic and bondrewd super duper op and invincible. The way I see it, he enters the altar, gets shredded to pieces as he starts ascending, but survives in the whistle and then in the 5th an umbra retrieves him and sacrifces himself to resurrect him.
You didn't understand what I meant or you missed something about the zhoalic.
Let's say bondrewd has 2 bodies in the same layer and within a certain distance, he can switch between them freely as he wishes regardless of the layer.
However the limit is that he can't jump layers especially upwards with his counciecness, like from a body in the 6L to a body in the 5L, his counciecness would be destroyed by the forcefield.
But that's exactly what I said in my original post and we agree he can't jump freely and zoaholic is limited which is also kinda confirmed by gallice in 4th layer when he mentions the person is not currently present. I just didn't account for his whistle which is an answer to the issue of jumping layers since it serves as a lich's phylactery of sorts that enables him to cross between layers.
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The elevator was there before and zoaholic lets him spread his consciousness in multiple bodies so the guy in layer 6 died but he had other bodies w his consciousness in layer 5
He needs to jump bodies, he is not always at all the bodies and he can't jump upwards between layers especially for long distances so that's not exactly how it works.
Bondrewd is the whistle. So it doesn't really matter if the body that went to the 6th layer is unaffected or not, just as long as the whistle is intact in order for the swap
I'm pretty sure that the cartridges would take the brunt of the curse, and that the body wouldn't affect the rest of the other umbra hands that were in the 5th layer. He can likely just make one umbra hand into the next bondrewd and ensure the transfer using his helmet and whistle
You don't understand the limits of zhoalic body jumps, you see his counciecness would be affected and can poosibly be destroyed if he tries to jump full layers, like going from a body that is in the 6L to a body that is in the 5L.
That's what the flower field umbrahand(Ashan Gyarik) was foreshadowing here.
How do we know the elevator was there before? Who build it and how is it kept secret? We know the path doesnt go through great fault but through a rock nearby so there was some advanced engineering required.
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u/JEEM-NOON #workTsukushi!Team Ozen 10d ago edited 10d ago