Motivation Monday: Lessons Learned: Ancient Magus' Bride Edition

Good Morning everyone! Welcome back to my blog and to the first edition of "Lessons Learned" Monday Motivation! So, just in case it sounds a bit confusing, let me clear some things up for you! Mondays will be posts pertaining to positive lessons learned from various anime that we cover here at Nerdy and Confused. It will either contain quotes or simply examples and how they correlate to a life lesson. Does that make sense? I hope so. Anyways, Let's get this party started!

Lesson # 1! All it takes is for ONE person to believe in you. It can change your life.

Okay, so , I am a very strong advocate in the idea of believing in yourself first rather than relying on someone else to do so because, in some cases, if you don't even believe in yourself, then who else would want to? Well, I do believe that there are some exceptions to this. Take Chise for example. She has been through the ringer on a crazy level. With her mother trying to strangle her and exclaim that she should have never given birth to her, her family openly calling her scary and weird and how they didn’t want anything to do with her, to classmates horrendously bullying her, and being able to see spirits and other creatures that the average person cannot see, thus giving her the label of 'crazy'. All of these factors weighed down on her psyche and her emotional state. It got to the point where she tried to kill herself, but it didn't work, so she simply signed her life away to an underground auction. All of this because she felt she was worthless. She was emotionally and psychologically dead inside. However, upon being bought by Elias, he has slowly been helping her regain some sense of value and worth. In their very first encounter after he bought her he made her look up at him and said:  

"You don't need to keep your head down. Stand tall, and look forward, understood?"

Then proceeded to tell her.

"I can't have you being so helpless. Dolls are fine, but I paid good money for you. You need to make yourself worth looking at."

Some more dialogue.

"You have become a mage's apprentice...I welcome you as my apprentice Sleigh Beggy. No.... Chise."

Alright. Out of context and understanding this dialogue doesn't seem quite positive, now does it? But, let me break it down for you!

When Chise is first brought to Elias, she has nothing but an over-sized shirt and a steel collar with chains wrapped around her neck. Her eyes are devoid of life and she doesn't make contact with anyone, let alone the person that just bought her. In the most thought of circumstances, the person that would "buy" her would typically be seen as a tyrant or someone merely looking for a servant. This was not one of those cases. Though Elias lacks understanding in "human empathy" (you'll find out later in the series), he still has a righteous sense of morals. He could have told her she would be his slave or some grotesque things, however, the first thing he tells her is to basically have confidence in herself. "You don't need to keep your head down. Stand tall, and look forward, understood?" He is essentially telling her that they are equals.  He is not her master, but her teacher. She is not his slave, but his apprentice.

In the next segment he tells her that she needs to make herself worth "looking at". In essence, the way I take it, build your self-confidence, hold yourself in a way that people will respect you and you will respect yourself.  

Believe in yourself and everyone else will start to too.

It is in these moments that you see utter shock in her face. Never had she had anyone give her and inclination that she was of value or deserving of confidence/belief. These are the moments that initiate the change in her mindset.

Lesson #2 If you truly love someone, let them go:

Okay, this lesson was learned through a really muffed up episode. This character Ruth (thus named by Chise) had a young girl that he adored. He believed that she was his beloved sister even though he was a "dog". He was so disillusioned that he had lost his sense of true identity. He believed himself to be human, even though he was nowhere near that. ( Yes, he could take on a humanesque form, but he wasn't completely human).  

Upon the death of his "sister" he had no idea what to do with himself. He stayed by her grave and never seemed to leave. It wasn't until his interaction with Chise that he had come to learn that he wasn't a human and what his real purpose was. I have to admit, the way he had to face this made me cringe.  

Think of it this way: a psychotic demon child took body parts from various creatures to create chimera slaves as his toys and play things. The most recent: he had dug up Ruth's "Sister's" body and took her head and other body parts to use in the experiment and faced her off against Ruth.  

Now, I was devastated for him! No lie. It was one of those WTF?!?! Moments when I had to take a moment's break from watching the episode.  But, against all odds, Ruth fought the "monster" and killed it thus releasing his "sister's" soul from the creature and said his goodbyes. From there he was able to forge a new bond with Chise, moving on and leaving his attachments behind.

This teaches us that we can't hold on to things for too long. It could end up being hindering on not only our mental and emotional states, but halting to our every days lives. We must learn to open ourselves and accept that things happen and that there's a lesson to learn from everything  even if we may not see it at that particular time.

Lesson # 3: A little act of kindness can go a long way

So, there was this episode where young Chise stumbles upon a library in the woods after running away from a creature that startled her in a park nearby. She takes refuge here cautiously, until she notices these other creatures reading about the library. This is when she attempts to leave, but is stopped by the librarian named Miura. He's very gentle with her seeing how timid she is and decides to give her a library card and teaching her the two sole rules of the library: 1.) never forget your library card & 2.) Never leave the door open.

Not too long after, her situation at home begins to worsen. Her aunt and uncle continuously argue about throwing her out and her cousins constantly bully her about being the sole cause of all the issues in the home. It isn't long until her aunt leaves the house, taking the other children with her.

Chise soon takes refuge in frequently visiting this new library to  find solace. It is here that she starts to actually enjoy herself and gain some confidence. Miura treats her with kindness, a gentle hand, and feeds her positive encouragement: all of which starts to show her what real happiness can feel like.

It was because of Miura's acti of kindness that allowed Chise to see that not all people hated her or are bad, and that there are ways to enjoy yourself through the hard times: reading a book.

It was during this OVA prequal that I found I could relate the most to Chise. I am a survivor of bullying myself and, in order to get through that, in many cases I turned to books. They were my solace. They were my escape from the negativity. Those and anime. But, what also stuck, was that I could relate to the feeling you get when, in those dark times, someone extends a hand to you and shares kindness, no matter how small. The hope it can give you is insane.

Lesson #4: Death is not something to be feared if you have lived your live to its fullest

Nevin and Chise

Alright, I can't deny this, seeing the episode that gave this message had me in tears... To be brief, in this episode, Chise is taken to the Land of Dragons where she meets (you guessed it!) Dragons of all shapes and sizes as well as ages. One in particular,  Nevin, proved to be the most heartbreaking/ heart filling of them all. He is an old dragon who you can tell is nearing the end of his life for he can barely move his body at all. Another interesting detail is that moss is beginning to grow all about his body. We soon come to learn, death for dragons is a different experience than it is for humans. You see, when a dragon dies, for Nevin's species of Wu-il,they are given back to the earth in the form of trees and greenery. What I mean by this is: when their bodies decay upon death, their body transitions/transforms into beautiful forest trees and greenery to replenish the earth. This is why the U-il are known to be the "bearers of the forest and greenery".

The young dragons

It is in his dialogue with Chise where the tissues comes out:

" Have you never seen a dragon before?" He asks as she observes him, thinking he's sleeping.

"S-sorry! I-I didn't mean to--..!" She jumps back, retracting her hand from his side.

The sudden exclamation wakes the young dragons nearby.

"I didn't mean it like that." He responds. "

The 'children', thrilled to see that he's awake.

"It won't be long before I return home...(more dialogue)."

"It's almost his time" a young dragon says.

"His time?" Chise questions.

"Uncle Nevin's turning into a tree soon" He responds happily. "All the Uils do. They turn into excellent trees and pasture."

Chise proceeds to gaze around her surroundings and observe the beauty of all the greenery around her before turning back to Nevin.

"When you say 'return'… what do you mean?"

One of the children, a young Uil, responds to her: "We're going to turn into trees and moss and boulders when we die too!" A smile on his face as the others agree in happy unison.

"When you die?" She inquires further.

Nevin speaks up. "We don't fear death the way you humans do." He says. "We live our lives to the fullest, so that we never live with regrets."

Nevin's beauty upon his death

That's where it hit me. Some of the main things we humans fear are public speaking and death. But, as Nevin was insinuating, I believe on of the reasons that we fear death is because of that unknown of what's to come and the fact that there was so much left undone. We continuously think, be it consciously or unconsciously, that "oh, there's always tomorrow." But that isn't necessarily the case. One day there won't be a tomorrow to push things off to. One day will be our last. As a result? We need to push ourselves forward and strive to do our utmost best. We must enjoy our lives without regret and thus when death comes knocking at our door we can embrace it without fear because we know we've completed everything we sought out to do.

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Let's Play!

On that powerful note, I feel that this would be a great place to end our post for the day. I hope you enjoyed today's Lessons Learned: Ancient Magus' Bride Edition. I will see you all Wednesday! !