Shadows House (Official Colored) - Ch. 189 - The Unification Ritual

[KZO]

I do want them to become one, but not like this.

You know Louise, if you can't shut her up with your powers, try using your lips.

 

[AAA1]

Doesn't the shadow have control after a merger anyways? Isn't kinda pointless mind controlling the one that will disappear?

Considering how the coffee only has a minor effect on the shadows themselves (which has been shown before and Louise also states in this chapter) and how mind control of the face via coffee is part of the "normal" operation of the Shadow House and the ritual:

1. Brainwashing shadows might be hard / impossible via soot power.

2. There might be more to the whole unification than "the shadow controls the body, the face disappears". Maybe the thoughts of the Face actually have more influence on the final product than previously assumed. Then that could be the way the great grandfather keeps control over all the adults (who as shadows should be relatively immune to brainwashing via coffee), and what Lewis and Christopher/Anthony intend to ursurp here.

3. Crack theory, building on that: Since the ritual also tries to reinforce that the face is only a vessel and that merging is in the instinct of the shadow, maybe thats also not actually the truth and just a result of the brainwashing. Could be that unification doesn't only have to result in "both shadow and face die" and "the shadow subsumes the face".

Looking at previous chapter, controlling the face is important as that actually influence shadows whose still being dependent with her face. In another word, for someone who want to brainwashing the shadow he need to brainwashing the face.

The face can't be disappeared like shadows do. They can die malfunctioning, starved, drowned, and stabbed tho.

 

[AAA1]

So this is the event that presented in cover art huh

 

[7goat]

NOOOO

 

[EFMD]

OH FK

 

[waltergeist]

Game over man. Game over.

 

[roxnsox]

AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAA
AAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAA

So many details dropped in one chapter, man……….if Louise and Lou get saved it will be by a hair’s breadth.

 

[OttoVonHeim]

I think this maneuver from lewis will wreck anthony's plan of bringing kate to his side, when they find lou like this

 

[waltergeist]

I guess Edward is going to die in this arc now that Lewis is setting Anthony's plan in motion.

 

[ForTheJerusalem]

Everyone thinking about the twist, i'm thinking about that fanservice.

 

[zeronumerous]

Doesn't the shadow have control after a merger anyways? Isn't kinda pointless mind controlling the one that will disappear?

Yes, but Shadows are heavily influenced by their face. Non-Kate Shadows don't really have a personality of their own, and just mimick people/their face. So it's likely that the face determines a lot of the personality of the merged shadow, which is why coffee is used to control the faces. It makes the Shadows obedient by proxy.

 

[OfraKristian]

Christopher is still alive!?

 

[Coldlight]

I don't mind a bit of yuri vibes sometimes, but not like this.

Things get from bad to worse with Lou and Louise. We already knew "Anthony" was no good after he murdered Maggie, but he's entering full-fledged villain territory with someone attempting to brainwash the helpless Lou like this. I'm not even sure if this is Anthony's pawn Lewis (seems likely) or the true Christopher who may have actually completed unification and for some reason pretended to be Anthony. If that's the case and Christopher is actually still alive, this is a huge revelation.

Louise tried her best to resist the unification process using her power to weaken the true coffee's effects on Lou, but she needs help, and she needs it now.

 

[EdenMarino]

This is some truly demonic sh*t going on right now. I hope she makes it out of this alive.

 

[Joji_30]

Oh fucking shit Christopher is making this so complicated

 

[atropicalpenguin]

DAAAAAAAAAAAMN, I wasn't expecting this twist. Soumatou played me like a fiddle. With the opening pages I thought for sure that the girls would be able to trick Edward and maybe escape for themselves or hang on long enough for the team to rescue her. It was heartbreaking to see Lou lose control while Louise tried to save her. It's really sad that Louise eventually too fell to the fragments.

Christopher must be immensely powerful to counter Grandfather's soot, seems like his plan is to stage a coup and become the house's ruler. Wonder how his own unification went.

 

[Oodori]

MAYNNEEEEE CHRISTOPER TOO NOW?!?!?!?!?

 

[TestAddress]

Christopher is still alive!?

My bet is that is Anthony. Not Christopher. Humans can never ever hide in the shadows house anyway.

 

[friendly]

hrhrhhghghghghghgg CREEP ASS SHIT MAN.

Louise... Lou.....

Edit: HELL OF A CHAPTER TO BE ALL CAUGHT UP ON MAN. I let these chapters stack for like a literal year to binge on and yet the Cliffhanger Tension still got my ass. I never stood a chance...

Well if its gonna be like this I might as well do some actual analysis. The beans and the 'fragments' are kept in a really interesting edifice- namely it reminds me of the way saint relics are kept.

I suspect a base aspect of the shadows is this: While they do grow their own inherent personality, the loyalty of the 'Living doll' remains a permanent part of them after their fusion. In most cases this is to Grandfather- the structure of the Childrens Manor ensures this.
(In fact, I suspect this is part of why the adults don't really give a fuck about anything else that happens there- what matters is soot power wielding adults with unending loyalty to Grandfather, and everything about how the structure of the house works bends to that end fairly inevitably. Even a 'Face' whos brainwashing had been undone as long as Lou's was submits in the end here.)

Then we have special cases like Kate- but it's possible there could be other members of the house who secretly don't have a 'core loyalty' we don't know about, caused by the chaos of the initial bout of turning.

Then we have This Fucking Dipshit- I suspect if he's successful, it would permanently overwrite the 'core loyalty'. The shadows personality becomes dominant, but the resulting fusion maintains that core function.

But it's interesting how this all ultimately has one weakness: people can use the motivation of 'loyalty to the great grandfather' to decide for themselves what that means. Douglas' breakthrough actually did a great job of demonstrating that: bullying little dipshits decide their own advancement is 'for the good of great grandfather' so you can justify it for anything. Which is a motivation we see IRL plenty.

I want to hope Lou/Louise can still be saved... this says the 'day of', so maybe they could break in just in time?

...Maybe Louise could use her strength training to punch clean through the coffin door, Kill Bill style. LET ME HOPE...

 

[OfraKristian]

My bet is that is Anthony. Not Christopher. Humans can never ever hide in the shadows house anyway.

Is Anthony have a shadow power? This is getting more interesting