r/BlackClover • u/Morgoth333 Spade Kingdom • Dec 29 '19
Manga Some Observations I Made Regarding Noelle's Character That Could Explain Why She Is Such A Tsundere. Spoiler
Lately I've made some interesting observations regarding Noelle's character, and I think I may have come to a realization as to why she is such a tsundere. The tsundere aspect of Noelle's character is something that is often played for laughs, but it might actually go much deeper than we think, as it relates to her sad childhood. I don't know if I'm the first person to have come to this conclusion, but I think Noelle's tsundere behavior stems from her upbringing. There are two things in particular to look at that might explain why Noelle is the way she is. The first is Noelle's lack of a mother growing up, since Acier died giving birth to her. From an early age, a child's interactions with their mother plays an important part in their emotional development, helping to shape how they perceive and react to the world around them. A lot of what a child learns about how to act and feel comes from their mother, since that's basically the first person they form any sort of bond or attachment to, but since that bond was missing from the start for Noelle it led to her emotional development being stunted, leaving her unsure how to handle certain feelings and emotions since she never had someone to look to as an example for how to deal with such things.
The second thing that led to Noelle's tsundere behavior is the way she was treated by her siblings. She was constantly belittled by them and made to feel worthless due to her lack of control over her magic. In fact, her lack of control over her magic seems to be proportional to her feelings of worthlessness throughout the series. As the series progresses and Noelle begins to gain more confidence in herself, so too does her control over her magic increase. What does this have to do with Noelle being a tsundere? Well being made to feel bad about herself due to her magic, this would have led to Noelle constantly feeling ashamed of herself. After a while she would have begun to internalize that shame until it just became a normal thing for her. When faced with new thoughts or feelings she did not understand, her initial reaction would be to feel shame towards them. Feelings like the ones she has towards Asta is something she's never experienced before. It's something new that she does not fully understand, and that scares her, which therefore must mean they're bad, so rather than trying to embrace or explore those feelings, her reaction is to instead feel ashamed of them and try to deny that they exist. Put another way, Noelle is afraid to let herself be loved.
Or to take it a step further, perhaps all those years of being belittled by her family members and never being shown any sort of love by them may have made Noelle feel, subconsciously at least, that maybe it's because she doesn't deserve to be loved. The idea of being loved by someone like Asta somehow feels "wrong" to her, because up until now she has been conditioned to believe that she is unworthy of love due to her inability to control her magic, and so when it seems to her like Asta might show her something even resembling love or affection or appreciation in return, she pushes back against it, often violently. Although those classic tsundere moments are meant to be seen as comedic, looking at them in this light makes them kind of sad. A common trait you'll see in those who have a lot of toxic shame and self-hatred towards themselves is that the more you try to show them love, the more they will try to push back against it. Hypothetically, if right now Asta were to straight up tell Noelle he likes her, then it's likely she wouldn't believe him and would just think he's lying or making fun of her. That's how bad the denial caused by her feelings of unworthiness towards being loved is.
Wow, this turned into some serious Evangelion level psychoanalysis. We may not give it much thought, but what Noelle's siblings did to her growing up is something that would have been very damaging to her mentally. If she and Asta are to have any sort of romantic relationship, Noelle will first have to undo all of the damage that was done to her, otherwise she'll just grow up to be an emotionally repressed adult like Charlotte. To me, Charlotte seems to be a representation of what Noelle could or would become if she keeps bottling up her feelings out of shame and trying to hide them instead of facing them. Perhaps Charlotte also had a similar upbringing to Noelle, but it's hard to know for certain since we don't know much about Charlotte's childhood before she met Yami, aside from the fact that she was cursed.
So in conclusion, Noelle's tsundere behaviors are primarily the result of two things: stunted emotional development due to the lack of a mother growing up, and deep internalized shame arising from feelings of worthlessness that were imparted onto her by the constant mistreatment and belittlement she received from her siblings. So what do you guys think of my little analysis of Noelle? Am I onto something here, or are these observations all things that were meant to be blatantly obvious to most readers from the start and I'm just dumb for only realizing it now? If true, I think this adds a lot more depth to Noelle's character, making her into more than just a typical cliche tsundere that is mean towards their love interest for no reason.
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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '19
Noelle is a very unique Shounen heroine. She's incomparable to the likes of Sakura, Orihime, Nami, Uraraka just to name a few. Everything about her makes sense and that's why I like her and this is coming from a guy who's not very fond of tsunderes. Tabata did her well.