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A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 3

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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There's a lot to unpack in the Eden interview episode. It goes smoothly at first, with Twilight and Yor being able to provide rehearsed answers to the questions. But things start to fall apart when Yor is questioned about her cooking skills, a question she obviously wasn't prepared for. And here we get another instance of Twilight choosing human decency over bettering the mission by sticking up for Yor when Swan starts criticizing her. He could have easily kowtowed by saying something that would make them look better, like agreeing with Swan's remarks and saying that Yor is taking cooking lessons or something. Doing that would have increased their chances of passing the interview, which was the most important thing for the mission at the time. But instead, he drops the fake smile and looks visibly annoyed at Swan while emphasizing Yor's good qualities.

He then catches himself at his sudden emotional instability, internally asking himself why he got so upset when she's not even his real wife. But of course, this was not the last time during the interview where he'd lose his cool.

Things get back on track for a bit when they move on to questioning Anya, and she muddles through with her humorous responses. But when asked what she thinks of her parents, Anya responds with the most competent and articulate answer she'd given yet – saying that she'd score them at 100 percent and wants to be with them forever. Clearly this was not an answer they had rehearsed, as Twilight and Yor look surprised at her response. The three of them had probably not been together very long by that point, and yet Anya already thinks so highly of them. Unlike her (fake) parents who have ulterior motives behind their roles in the family, all Anya wants is to live happily with a family she loves. While she has to hide the fact that she can read minds, she has no reason to hide anything else, like the fact that she loves her parents. She wouldn't want to be with parents she didn't like, so there'd be no reason for her to lie at the interview if she didn't really love them that much…an early sign of what naturally good parents Twilight and Yor are.

When Swan decides to cross the line by asking Anya whether she loves her biological mother or her new mother more, Twilight doesn't hesitate to show disapproval and request another question. Even though he just had to correct himself when he lost his composure during Yor's questioning, once again his compassionate side pushes his "for the mission" reasoning aside.

When Anya starts crying, Yor immediately jumps in to comfort her. Unlike Twilight, she isn't hindered by having to go through all the internal reasoning with herself about whether this would harm her facade. Nor does she seem to care that Anya might actually prefer her real mother, or even give any thought that her actions might ruin the interview, and ultimately her chance at staying Loid's wife – all she cared about at that moment was that this child she was becoming fond of was hurting and she had to do something. This is also the first time we see Yor's scary "mama bear" mode, a rare side of her usually sweet and polite personality…a side that only comes out when someone is threatening Anya or other people she loves.

On the other hand, after slipping up twice, Twilight manages to keep calm for a while, going over and over in his mind how this is all for the mission, and Swan's insults don't matter since they're a fake family. But just as Yor is ready to go full assassin on Swan, Twilight snaps first and launches a punch right at Swan's face, internally yelling at himself to hold back. In the end, he diverts his punch to the table, as well as a deus ex machina mosquito, that allows him to provide an excuse for his unexpected behavior (though I'm still curious what Yor would have done to Swan had Twilight not acted first. Most likely the table would not be the only thing broken).

At this point, Twilight must have known that their chances of passing the interview were shot. His excuse about the mosquito was flimsy, and Swan was obviously angry at them as they started to leave the room. And yet, instead of making an attempt to salvage any chance they might have left of leaving a good impression, Twilight decides to bluntly tell the Eden interviewers exactly what he thought – that they wouldn't want to attend a school that belittles the feelings of children.

I don't think I even need to mention that this is a prime example of how, as much as Twilight insists that everything he does is "for the mission," we as the audience know that this is not the case. Even though, as I mentioned before, sometimes it's ambiguous as to whether he's speaking his true feelings or not, this is one of the times where it's obvious that he is. Even this early in the series, it's clear that his philosophy isn't "for the mission" but more like "for the mission, as long as my morals aren't too compromised." He was willing to toss aside all the work he had done at that point – adopting Anya, marrying Yor, practicing for the interview, keeping up a perfect happy-family facade – because he values his morals more than his mission, even if he himself won't realize it.

When the Forgers dejectedly return home, Twilight shows what a non-judgmental guy he is (something I'll discuss more later) by scolding himself for letting his emotions get the better of him instead of putting any blame on Anya (despite the fact that earlier he said he was nervous because he had to depend on others for the success of the interview). And, when Anya apologizes, he comforts her rather than show any trace of resentment.

Meanwhile, Yor has a bit of a "Twilight moment" where she starts to realize that if they don't pass the interview, the life that they had begun to build would be in jeopardy...but quickly tells herself that she doesn't actually care, only that it could interfere with her work. But as expected, it won't be long before she'll be unable to continue divorcing her own well being from that of Loid and Anya.

On that note, when the Forgers find out that Anya could still get accepted to Eden if another student drops out, Yor fantasizes about killing the father of one of the students so he'd have to relinquish the spot. She of course quickly rejects the idea of killing innocent people, but it's interesting that, as the series goes on, she stops thinking only of her cover up and assassinating as a means to solve her problems. As I mentioned before about her losing her fascination with weapons, as she embraces her mother/wife role, her connection to her Thorn Princess identity slowly starts to fade.

Continue to Part 4 ->

<- Return to Part 2

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 4

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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When Anya ends up making it into Eden, Twilight is more or less coerced by Franky into giving her a lavish reward. Although this episode is mostly comedic and doesn't have much to analyze, a lot actually came to mind during the part where Twilight "battles" drunk Yor while she's pretending to be a witch. This is the first time he's seen her in her much less reserved, drunken state, and also the first time she's doing something that, to him, could be seen as an annoyance or even a threat (she did draw blood when she kicked at his face with her heel).

We know that Twilight wouldn't knowingly say things to Yor, Anya, or anyone else if it would be detrimental to his mission, such as an insulting remark that would hurt their feelings. However, this should not affect what he thinks. As far as Twilight is concerned, nobody has access to his thoughts except for him, so there's no reason for him to put any filters there (since he doesn't know that Anya can read his mind). We're given plenty of insight into his thoughts throughout the series, and even though, as I mentioned before, he often lies to himself about his feelings, he never seems to think bad things about other people. In this case, rather than be bothered or even angry at Yor for taking this silly performance so seriously, what does he think to himself? That she shouldn't be using physical attacks if she's supposed to be a witch! (and when she finally reaches her limit and falls asleep, he simply asks if she's okay).

Even for other characters who are actual threats to him, like Swan from the previous episode, or even Yuri later on, insults and criticisms never pop up in his thoughts (compare this to the many anime/manga protagonists who always think "this bastard" when faced with an antagonist). You can tell he's annoyed by having to do the whole Bondman skit, but even so, he doesn't openly complain about it (but he does openly congratulate Anya at the end). All this indicates that he's a very non-judgmental person both internally and externally. Another example that I mentioned before is when he refuses to put any blame on Anya and Yor for their performance at the Eden interview…and there will be many more instances like this to come. I believe the reason for this part of his personality goes back to his obsession with his spy profession.

He's determined to keep his emotions in check, whether good emotions or bad emotions, and even just thinking negative thoughts about others could trigger negative emotions. Because of this, he's probably conditioned himself over the years to just not feel anything towards other people, whether love or hate, attachment or aversion, which ultimately means never idolizing them or disdaining them. Why waste time thinking happy or angry thoughts about people when you can put that energy into understanding their mindset, outsmarting them, and then getting valuable information from them? He might also know that his own hands are dirty from all the lying, manipulating, and killing he's done in his line of work, so he feels he has no right to judge others. But regardless, while Twilight never harbors malevolence towards people, the number of positive thoughts he has about his (fake) family will only continue to increase, including those that manifest into words.

Continue to Part 5 ->

<- Return to Part 3

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 5

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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Anya and Yor have their first mother/daughter bonding experience when they go to the tailors to pick up Anya's Eden uniform. No doubt due to raising Yuri on her own, Yor is a good mother to Anya right from the start (despite her one slip up during their first outing where Anya read her thoughts about accidentally breaking Yuri's ribs…but Anya got over it quickly!) As she watches Anya in all her childhood innocence, showing off her uniform to everyone she meets, Yor thinks to herself that she wants to be a better mother even if their family is just for show. We see that she still has her default "robotic" expression that she had since her introduction episode.

As I mentioned before, Yor doesn't have Twilight's aversion to becoming attached to others. Her whole life up to then had revolved around her attachment to Yuri after all. While at this point in the series she's still prioritizing her cover up, she sees nothing wrong with growing closer to Anya, especially after remembering that Anya said she wanted to be with her mama and papa forever.

When the thugs kidnap Anya, Yor again goes "mama bear" mode. But unlike during the interview, she has no reason to hesitate with showing them her full strength. She seems particularly angry that they think she's Anya's nanny, probably because she had just decided she wants to be Anya's mother, yet even these lowlifes can't see her as mother material.

Even though she scares the thugs away, she immediately thinks she's a failure of a mother because she ruined the groceries during her outburst. But after Anya tells her that she loves her cool, strong mama and wants to be like her, Yor's confidence comes back. This is the key moment where she decides that even if she can't be like other mothers, she still wants to do her best in the role.

It's also at this point that Yor's default expression changes. While before she rarely smiled and was expressionless most of the time, that starts to shift. There's way too many examples to mention, but from here on she's constantly smiling sweetly at Loid and Anya whenever she's with them (even though she does occasionally mistake Loid's spy gusto for fatherly enthusiasm).

But especially whenever Anya does something endearing, she always showers her with motherly smiles and encouraging words. The first good example of this is during their next family outing at the Berlint aquarium.

She also continues to be sensitive to Loid's well being, noticing a few times how tired he seems during the trip (even though he insists on pushing himself).

But, as is the charm of Spy x Family's humor, Yor lovingly misinterprets Loid's discreet cues about his mission and ends up thwarting him further, for example, when she thinks it would help their cover if they hang out with the neighbors to show off what a good family they are, not knowing that would hinder his chances of sneaking away.

We also continue to see how quickly Yor will fiercely attack anyone who threatens Anya – Anya need only say that she's being kidnapped and Yor immediately kicks the guy into the ceiling without a second thought (well, she does admit her haste after the fact). As much as Yor wants to be "normal," all that goes out the window whenever one of her loved ones is being threatened.

After making it through both the mission and the aquarium trip, we get a notable scene at the end of the episode where Twilight buys Anya a giant penguin plush (despite his exhaustion that day, his father skills continue to improve). After putting on his whole Loid Forger act for the neighbors, we see that internally he's fed up with how much work WISE has been giving him. He thinks to himself that he's going to complain about it and request a vacation. However, we then get another "softly emphasized" scene from his POV of an adorably happy Anya clutching her new penguin plush, and Yor smiling at her with motherly tenderness.

I discussed these kinds of scenes previously – scenes that emanate comfort and warmth in his eyes despite him trying to suppress those feelings. In this case, watching Anya and Yor sharing such a happy moment touched him to the point of immediately retracting what he just said. Of course, he won't say that it did or even give a facial expression that matches his feelings. But it's clear that, despite his exhaustion, seeing how happy his (fake) wife and (fake) daughter are living a peaceful life, provides enough motivation for him to continue his missions without rest.

Twilight's perfect spy composure gets broken down further when he snaps at Anya for trying to innocently go into his room while playing with Penguinman. When Anya's crying won't be quelled, he does something extremely unfitting for a spy – he also "plays" with Penguinman, giving it a silly voice, moving its flipper in exaggerated gestures, and having it tell Anya that she needs to stop crying "for the sake of world peace" (Yor follows his lead and does the same with Anya's toy robot).

Even when Anya decides to continue their game out in public, Twilight and Yor go along with it. I definitely think that past Twilight would have tried a more "by the book" tactic, like callously bribing Anya with something she likes to make her stop crying. Even though this is what eventually calmed her down (buying her peanuts), the fact that Twilight was willing to do something super embarrassing but more fatherly, all without any begrudging thoughts, shows his improved parenting skills.

Note: Even though the Berlint aquarium episode was the last in cour 1 of season 1 of the anime, in the manga it takes place sooner. Since it's a side story, there are several places in the early part of the episodes/chapters where it fits in the chronology. I felt this was a good place in my post series to discuss it, but the chronology for these standalone episodes isn't strict. Just wanted to mention this so nobody thinks I'm skipping episodes 7-11!

<- Return to Part 4

Continue to Part 6 ->

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 6

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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The episode where Twilight pressures Anya to study after she gets a tonitrus is one of the first examples of how well Yor complements him as a parent. While Twilight is all about plans, calculations, and trying to figure things out from a logical standpoint, with emotions never getting in the way, Yor is all about emotions. While Twilight remains calm and level-headed, Yor reacts to everything from an empathetic, motherly level first. Twilight obsesses about rationalizing and compartmentalizing everyone's feelings while Yor's immediate reaction is how she can make everyone feel better (for example, her first reaction when hearing that Anya punched Damian was asking Anya if she was okay). Twilight, being the ever-calculating spy who's determined to stay one step ahead of everything, misses obvious social cues that have to do with basic human feelings, and that's where Yor comes in. In this case, he's too focused on trying to understand why Anya is having trouble with her studies instead of how she feels. But Yor, who always looks out for the feelings of others first, tells Loid that she'd rather Anya enjoy going to school instead of being an honor student.

As she opens up to him about how Yuri would always teach her things and enjoy her praise, Twilight starts to doubt how good of a father he's been. Of course, Yor immediately reassures him, telling him that he should try praising Anya for even the smallest of successes.

She goes on to say that he needs to believe in himself and that he's been a great father to Anya. Twilight looks visibly surprised by her words, perhaps even momentarily forgetting to be in Loid Forger mode.

I'm sure encouragement like this is not something he gets often in his line of work. Or if he does, he's praised for something superficial, like his good looks by one of the many women he's wooed, or maybe for his cunning as a spy by his WISE coworkers. But it's likely no one has ever encouraged him so genuinely before, and also likely that he never felt he needed encouragement before because he always had his missions under control. But being a father is proving to be more difficult than he expected with just logic and reasoning alone, since those concepts are things that children as young as Anya don't follow. And here he's realizing that emotional empathy, something he's constantly trying to cast aside, is necessary for being a parent too, and it's something that Yor has an abundance of.

When Yor backs down a bit, thinking she shouldn't be telling him how to raise his daughter, Twilight immediately returns her encouragement, saying that she should have say in the matter since she's Anya's mother. He says that he'll rely on her to be everything he's not…which is, as we'll see throughout the rest of the series, giving Anya the physical affection and emotional understanding that he's not ready to show yet.

Here it's debatable how much of what he's saying is his true feelings or his Loid Forger persona (I'd say a little bit of both). Yor is surprised by his response, as she's also not used to hearing encouraging words from someone besides Yuri, especially about her role as a mother, something she's still not confident about. But their conversation must have touched Twilight since, as he puts Anya to bed, he thinks back to how Yor said he was a wonderful father and then wonders what it would be like to have a real family. Just a fleeting thought, or the first sign of a deep rooted yearning that's starting to grow?

I'd also like to point out that despite his utter devastation upon finding out that Anya not only got a tonitrus, but practically ruined her chances of becoming friends with Damian, Twilight doesn't show, or think, any resentment towards Anya (or Yor for training her). The next morning, he thinks to himself that it's simply more productive to move on rather than dwell on the past. This goes back to what I previously said about Twilight being a very non-judgmental person and keeping not only his actions but his thoughts clear of any ill will towards others (Yor is very non-judgmental as well, but for her it stems from her crippling lack of self-esteem, something I'll discuss more later, as opposed to a conscious effort to suppress those feelings like it is for Twilight).

Continue to Part 7 ->

<- Return to Part 5

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 7

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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After setting up the "lovey-dovey marriage kit" before Yuri's visit, Twilight and Yor look a bit embarrassed about the whole thing, which is exacerbated by Anya once again suggesting that they're flirting, and once again they abruptly deny it.

It's understandable that Yor would be embarrassed, since she never had any notable relationships with anyone besides Yuri, especially not a romantic one. Even though it's only for show, just the thought of it is overwhelming for an emotionally sensitive person like her. But why would Twilight feel uneasiness about it?

In my opinion, around this point in the series is where he starts to show that he probably feels something for Yor…not love yet per se, but maybe a fondness on a level deeper than he had with other women, especially after their recent heart-to-heart conversation. So whenever he's confronted about it, he gets jarred. Perhaps he felt a twinge of it on their first outing when Anya initially suggested that they're flirting, but it starts cropping up more during Yuri's visit. Not only do they both recoil when they accidentally touch hands (again, Yor's reaction is understandable, but why would Twilight be anything but calm about something so minute?) but when confronted with having to kiss, his initial reaction is not what you'd expect from a spy who's wooed women before. At first he's shocked, then he has to take a few moments to regain his composure, telling himself that he's faked relationships with dozens of women and that it's just a kiss.

I'm sure he's kissed at least some of those women for one reason or another, so wouldn't he be used to it by now? Why would he have to go through a whole spiel in his head just to make himself do it again? It's also worth mentioning that at this point, he doesn't yet know that Yor has such a strong aversion to stuff like this, so that wouldn't be a reason for his hesitation.

But despite his internal misgivings, Twilight switches back to his composed Loid Forger mode and agrees to go through with the kiss. Yor, on the other hand, having never experienced this level of intimate physical contact, is completely flustered. It's debatable as to what stage her feelings for Loid are at this point – she definitely likes, trusts, and respects him wholeheartedly, and perhaps is even starting to feel something more for this man she's only known a short while yet he's given her comfort she's never had before. But unlike Twilight, who responds to emotions he doesn't understand by quickly reverting to his stoic spy persona, Yor responds in the exact opposite way...by becoming an utter emotional wreck.

When Yor intentionally gets herself drunk just so she can handle the whole situation, Twilight realizes how uncomfortable she is and tells her she doesn't have to do it if she doesn't want to. This is, once again, another example of him being a decent guy who tries his best whenever possible to consider people's feelings even if it conflicts with his missions.

But when (drunk) Yor insists, he decides to just let it happen…much to Yuri's dismay. When Yuri's shouting inadvertently snaps Yor out of her drunken state, and she realizes what she was about to do, she reacts the only way she knows how when feeling such intense, confusing emotions – with (often misdirected) violence.

Soon after, as he watches the interactions between Yor and Yuri as the latter takes his leave, Twilight comments on what wonderful siblings they are and how he admires their dedication to each other.

While he seems to be putting on his Loid Forger act here, we find out that it was not a total lie. Later that night, as he's sitting in his room, he reveals that he actually was feeling envious of the Briars' sibling bond. He can't remember the last time he felt envious of someone, envy being one of many other feelings he cast aside when he decided to become a spy. As I mentioned before, Twilight prefers not to think highly nor poorly of others, only seeing them as a means to better his missions or gather information. As a result, negative emotions, especially envy, have no place in his heart…and yet, he's suddenly feeling just that.

Not too long ago he found himself wondering what it would be like to have a family, and now he's feeling envious of a familial bond? As we'll find out later on, something in Twilight is already changing even if he won't acknowledge it.

Continue to Part 8 ->

<- Return to Part 6

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 8

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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The next day, Yor's incredibly low self-esteem resurfaces, not only from the events of the night before, but also from Anya commenting that she's a bad cook (it's subtle, but Anya was probably going to say something about Yor's true identity when she read Twilight's mind and realized he was suspicious of Yor, but then thought better of it).

In Yor's view, not only can she not cook, but she couldn't even go through with the kiss, and it was only thanks to Loid that everything with Yuri was smoothed over in the end. She misinterprets him being suspicious of her as him being upset with how useless of a wife she's been.

@greatwyrmgold suggests that Yor has impostor syndrome and/or social anxiety, and I agree with that. We saw a bit of it early on when she saved Anya from the thugs who wanted to steal her Eden uniform, where the only thing she could focus on after was what a failure she was for destroying the groceries in the process. @twiyoriz pointed out another example way back when she first met Loid at the tailors. When he commented on how pretty she was and she started to pursue him before finding out he had a child (and probably a wife too), she never thought he did anything wrong by flirting with her – she only blamed herself for almost asking out a married man. It's even worse in this episode. She can barely concentrate at work and ends up confiding in her coworkers about her situation. She even thinks about giving Loid some of the money she earns from her assassin jobs so she could be useful to him.

It's interesting to note that during her encounter with the fake SSS officers, Yor only starts to revert to "assassin mode" when Franky makes a grab at her. But even then, her response is that he shouldn't touch her because she's a married woman, not because she doesn't want to be touched. She then goes further by threatening them if they do anything to harm Loid or Yuri. As usual, she really only loses it when someone threatens a person she loves, but not when she's the one under attack. Even afterwards, she never blames the SSS officers for totally screwing up and almost making a false arrest…all she can think about is what she did wrong – almost getting arrested and almost attacking a government agent.

ProfessorViral made some good points about this part of Yor's character in his video analysis . To summarize, Yor dedicated her entire life to raising Yuri and ensuring his success. This more or less became her purpose in life, and because she never had time for other "normal" relationships like with friends or lovers, the only purpose she could see for herself is how she could be useful to him, which she was by becoming an assassin. But when she took on this new role of (fake) wife/mother, because of how she had lived her life until then, she can only see her worth in terms of her usefulness to Loid and Anya, just like with Yuri. She doesn't know how else to live besides being useful to others, yet the people she wants to be useful to don't need the one thing she knows how to offer: money from her assassin jobs. Because her assassin profession holds no benefit to them, she assumes being a "normal" wife/mother is what she has to be instead. Even though Loid and Anya never demanded this from her, outside influences, like her coworkers, the Eden interviewers, and the SSS, do – while she gets nothing but adoration in the Forger household, outside of that she's bombarded with expectations of what a wife/mother should and shouldn't be. Because of all this, she becomes conflicted, which only worsens her imposter syndrome.

Twilight does well keeping his emotions in check throughout this episode. But what's interesting is that, while he denied feeling guilty about being suspicious of Yor, when Franky tells him to keep his emotions out of the picture, he doesn't deny anything. He pauses for a moment (a pause in the anime, while the manga adds an extra panel of his placid expression to signify a pause) before bantering with Franky about the fake mask he was wearing.

But this won't be the last time Twilight doesn't try to deny feeling emotions for his (fake) family when someone brings it up. And yet, remember how quick he was to deny anything flirtatious about himself and Yor when Anya mentioned it? There's a lot of moments like this that show that Twilight is much more likely to lose his composure around his (fake) family than with anyone else. I think at least one reason he's quicker to dismiss his feelings in front of Yor and Anya is because he knows if he let's any deeper emotions show, they may feel a need to reciprocate, and that will only make things more difficult for when he eventually has to leave them.

When Twilight finally meets up with Yor, he sees how depressed she is. She even flat out tells him that she's useless because she can't keep her own clothes clean (something he's to blame for).

It's here that Twilight returns the confidence boost that Yor gave him not too long ago when he started thinking he was a failure as a father. While it's again debatable how much of what he's saying here is just "for the mission" stuff (since he can't let Yor get depressed) it's obvious his remarks about how exhausting it can be to always put on a performance, is spoken from the heart. In this case and many others, while "for the mission" may be the reason Twilight says many of the nice things he says to Yor, Anya, and others, what he actually says are things he truly believes in, especially when talking about a broader topic like this.

Twilight is momentarily thrown off his groove when Yor tells him that she's glad she married him. For the first time since he started being suspicious of her, he looks noticeably surprised at something she said.

He was probably expecting just a "thank you" or "I'll keep doing my best." As I suggested during Yuri's visit, at this point he may be starting to feel something for Yor, so the fact that she so sincerely said that she's glad she married him right after he put her through such a bad situation, probably poked at his conscience. His expression immediately darkens (a sign that his true feelings want to surface) as he recalls Franky's words about him feeling guilty for suspecting her. He then tightly clutches the bug in his hands before throwing it away, then suggests that they get a cake to celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary – all of which are subtle but clear reactions that show his satisfaction at not having to be suspicious of her anymore.

This is all just more evidence of how well Twilight and Yor complement each other, not just as parents to Anya, but for each other as individuals. While their core values and morals of wanting to do good in the world are the same, their personalities and how they view everything around them is vastly different. As also mentioned in Twiyoriz's post, Twilight, being a spy, always expects the worst from others, is always suspicious, and as such, refuses to let emotions cloud the reasoning skills he needs to survive. Yor, however, is the opposite – she always sees the best in others, will always put blame on herself first, and she reacts by emotions before reason. And yet, when Twilight was trying to overanalyze Anya's studying motivation and his own ineptitude as a father, Yor brought in the much-needed emotional side of things that he was missing. Likewise, in this case, when Yor's emotional instability was getting the best of her, Twilight's words helped her put things in a rational perspective that she never would have thought of on her own. A balance of strictness and rationalizing, as well as emotional understanding and support, is needed not just in parenting, but in a relationship as well.

Continue to Part 9 ->

<- Return to Part 7

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 9

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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Disclaimer:

This post discusses an episode in which the chronology of the anime differs significantly compared to the manga: in the manga, Yor's "bullet-in-the-butt" date with Loid occurs much earlier, sometime after Yuri's first visit but before Bond's introduction. This makes it their first date in the manga, before their date at the bar. The anime changed it to much later in the series, even altering it slightly so Bond is included. Since I'm prioritizing the manga chronology for this post series, I will be basing my analysis on that.

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Twilight and Yor's first date episode is where we see the extent of what I mentioned before where Twilight has become much more prone to lose his cool when it comes to his (fake) family versus anyone else. He misinterprets Yor's scowl and immediate retreat to her room as her being upset with him. He doesn't even hide his shocked expression as he panics about how he's been asking too much of her lately and that's why she's upset.

As one dating activity after another fails, he frets about how his plan was a failure and he should have done more research. All his reactions in this chapter go back to another thing I mentioned before where he rarely blames others when things in his missions go wrong, especially when it comes to Yor and Anya. Rather than be angry at Yor for being seemingly unappreciative of all the fun activities he put together, he instead blames himself! (which is actually something Yor would do…maybe her imposter syndrome is rubbing off on him!)

This is one reason why Twilight and Yor stand out as a couple – they never display any ill will towards each other. For most other (future) couples, especially in anime/manga, at least one of them is often very brashly in denial about their feelings for the other, to the point of always bantering with or even openly insulting them…a standard example of "you always hurt the one you love." Of course, one could argue that the reason Twilight and Yor are always nice to each other is because it's in their own best interests to remain a (fake) happy family. But as I discussed before, even if Twilight has to constantly lie to others to get what he wants, there's no reason he'd have to lie in his own thoughts. And yet, in all these cases – when drunk Yor almost beat him up at the castle, when her training resulted in Anya getting a tonitrus, and now, when she's seemingly ungrateful for all the nice places he took her to for their date, he still doesn't get upset with her.

Has he been like this with other women he's faked relationships with? At this point in the series, we've only gotten a short glimpse of one of these relationships in the very first episode. But in that case, he's certainly not against insulting his fake partner if he feels it's justified, since we see him passive aggressively tell Karen off before breaking up with her. Of course, this could only be because he no longer needed Karen and so he didn't have to hide his dislike for her anymore. It's hard to say exactly how Twilight's relationship with Yor compares to other women, but what can be said is that he seems more likely to lose his composure when Yor or Anya are in distress than anything else on his missions.

Similar to the Berlint Aqualand visit, this chapter is peak Spy x Family humor where Twilight, Yor, and/or other characters around them have to hide something, so they lie about it, which causes others to humorously misinterpret their actions, which then causes them to misinterpret their misinterpretation…and all the while Anya knows exactly what's going on and thinks they're oh so silly (but she'll do everything she can to help them keep up their silly facade!) In Twilight's case, he wrongly thinks Yor is upset with him and he has to cheer her up. But on Yor's side, she thinks it's a learning experience where Loid is trying to teach her how to be a proper wife to keep up their charade.

Considering all that we know about Yor and her low self-image, it makes sense that she would never think he would ask her on a date because he genuinely liked her. As always, she only sees herself as a means to someone else's end. On the other hand, if Yor had asked Twilight out, he would probably assume that she had feelings for him. But, as we'll see later on during their date at the bar, due to him being the way he is, his reaction to that knowledge would be completely amiss.

When Yor has a reprieve from her injury, she's able to finally express her appreciation to Loid for all he did that night. She admits that she never had much time for fun since she was always busy taking care of Yuri, so doing all these activities with him meant a lot to her. We then get another "softly emphasized" scene (more so in the manga) from Loid's POV of her smiling sincerely at him as she tells him she'd like to go on a date again sometime. He smiles back and says he'd like that too.

Does he truly feel that way, or is he just saying that because he knows it's what she wants to hear? Like many other similar instances, it's debatable if Twilight is speaking what he truly feels or because it's "for the mission." But as I've mentioned before, Endo does give us subtle hints when he wants to show that Twilight is genuinely feeling something about what's going on around him, whether it's by adding an extra panel that focuses on his expression changing, or in this case, giving us a "softly emphasized" scene of another character from his perspective, along with a "..." in his dialogue before he responds. But whether "for the mission" was the only driver behind Twilight's response or not, it's clear at this point in the series that spending time with Yor is not something he dislikes (especially if he doesn't think she's upset with him the whole time!) Also, despite his comment about not understanding women in the last scene, he obviously hasn't given up on his dating abilities, since he'll ask Yor on another date not too long later.

Continue to Part 10 ->

<- Return to Part 8

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 10

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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Before Anya gets her first stella, we get another scene of Twilight pressuring her to study after he sees her poor test scores. While he's still a bit strict here, he catches himself soon after chiding her, realizing that pushing her too hard will only hurt her motivation (meanwhile, Yor is once again the encouraging mother and compliments Anya on her good math test score).

Rather than keep forcing his agenda of making her an academically inclined scholar like he did before, this time Twilight makes noticeable effort to try to understand Anya's side of it, as he and Yor discussed previously. He tries various activities to see which one she naturally excels at, and though she doesn't do well in any of them, he tells himself not to get too worked up, since she is only a first grader and Desmond won't be making his move right away.

Even when Anya continues to screw up when they volunteer at the hospital, he doesn't get mad at her. However, when she does end up getting a stella, he doesn't hide the fact that he feels genuinely proud of her. He pats her head (one of his rare displays of affection) and tells her "nice work," all the while thinking to himself that he felt the same sense of pride when he stopped a terrorist attack during a mission. We get two "softly emphasized" panels of Twilight smiling proudly at Anya, and Anya beaming back at him. The fact that he's allowing himself to feel a genuine emotion for this child that he originally felt no qualms about returning to the orphanage, shows his growth not just from a parenting perspective, but also from an emotional one, as slight as it is.

Of course, Yor has no problem giving Anya a big hug and telling her how happy she is. Looking at Anya's face, Yor is probably still learning how to hold back when hugging Anya and was squeezing her a bit too tight. Thankfully she didn't break anything like she had done with Yuri!

When Anya decides that she wants a dog as her stella reward, Twilight and Yor's initial ideas about dogs are fitting. Since both of their lives have revolved so heavily around their work, they never got to know many "normal" things, including a normal relationship people have with dogs. The ever-paranoid Twilight imagines a burley guard dog trained for security purposes – someone like him could only imagine getting a dog because it would be useful for his missions, not for something "trifling" like emotional support. Yor sees dogs as dangerous, likely because many of the criminals she's sent to assassinate have attack dogs for their protection.

Twilight even goes so far as to have WISE supply their own trained dogs to the pet shop. But much to his dismay, Anya doesn't like any of them, causing Twilight to reluctantly decide to try the adoption fair instead.

When Anya wanders off, Yor panics when she can't find her. More of her naivety about the world shows when she assumes that Anya was kidnapped in order to be some shady character's bride because she had just seen it on TV.

When she finally does find Anya with the terrorists, we once again see her scary "mama bear" mode that's strictly reserved for anyone who threatens her loved ones. Similar to how Twilight is willing to quickly cast aside his "for the mission" philosophy if someone he cares about is in trouble, Yor will quickly cast aside her desire to act "normal" for the same reason. She and Anya then share a sweet moment where Anya apologizes for running off and Yor gives her a hug.

I'd also like to mention that both Twilight and Yor were threatened by the German shepherd, but both of them chose not to actually harm him even though they definitely could have. Instead of giving him one of her deadly kicks like she does to anyone else who's about to harm Anya, Yor chose to instead give him an intimidating glare (which worked).

Twilight could have shot him, but instead he chose to shoot off his vest containing the bomb. Even when the dog was biting him, he chose to trap him in a nearby dumpster instead of shooting him. He even apologized to the dog, both for having to put him in the dumpster and for the more general reason that dogs like him have to suffer for human conflict.

As much as Twilight and Yor see dogs as dangerous creatures, they choose not to harm a dog that was actually a threat to them. Yor even showed concern for Bond (a dog she just met who was supposedly allied with terrorists) when she thought Anya was being too rough with him.

Anyone who shows compassion to animals always gets points in my book! (there was also the time at the Eden interview where Yor chose to subdue the rampaging bull by hitting its pressure points when killing/injuring it would have been easier for her – she even said that she wasn't sure such a thing would work on a bull, but took the risk anyway).

Of course, Twilight and Yor's initial concerns about dogs disappear once they bring Bond into their home and see what a gentle boy he is.

Continue to Part 11 ->

<- Return to Part 9

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 11

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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When the "doggy crisis" is finally resolved and the Forgers are reunited, Twilight rightfully chews Anya out for running off by herself. But he then softens and asks if she's hurt, and when she tells him that Bond protected her, he makes sure to give the dog a sincere thank you for saving his daughter. As I said before, anyone who shows respect to animals gets character points to me, especially someone like Twilight whose line of work makes him distrustful of everyone and everything. It's not like he had any reason to gain Bond's favor at that moment – he genuinely felt gratitude for the dog and wanted to express it.

And of course, in classic Spy x Family fashion, Twilight's fib about being stuck in the bathroom the whole time causes the overly self-conscious Yor to assume it's from the awful breakfast she made (something that will have repercussions later).

When they go on their first outing with Bond at the park, Twilight muses to himself about life post-Operation Strix, something he hadn't done since he first adopted Anya. Compared to back then when he flatly stated that he'll send Anya back to the orphanage when it's all over, this time he says that the agency will do what they can for Anya and Yor even though he won't see them again.

It's obvious that Yor is attached to Anya, so he knows she would have no reason to abandon her even if he left the family. The terrorist crisis that had just occurred made him remember that his ultimate goal of ending the cold war is top priority. He reinforces his utilitarian view that this is what's most important for everyone's future even if it means sacrificing some happiness along the way…like Anya's, Yor's, and, though he won't admit it, his own.

Twilight does seem to feel regret about this as he recalls that he just told Anya that she has a responsibility to care for the newly adopted Bond for the rest of his life, yet he won't be doing the same for the child he adopted.

As for why he says he would never be able to see Anya and Yor again, in his mind, maintaining a relationship that's unnecessary for his work would just be a hindrance. I also think that he wouldn't want to put them in danger by having any association with him – they had just gotten dragged into the terrorist mission he was trying to take care of after all. I imagine he plans to do something like fake the death/disappearance of Loid Forger, or maybe say/do things to Anya and Yor that would make them hate him so he could easily break ties with them (hopefully that's not the case as that would be too heartbreaking! Of course, he wouldn't be able to fool Anya…but I digress). Either scenario would result in him not being able to see them again, at least not as the Loid Forger they've come to know.

Twilight reminds himself of this again soon after when he tries to help Franky woo the girl he has a crush on (which ends in failure). When they're drinking together at the bar, he tells Franky that people like them can't afford to have feelings for others as it would only end badly.

At this point in the series, we know that Twilight has at least some feelings for Yor and Anya (which will be pointed out by Nightfall soon) so perhaps he's saying this also as a reprimand to himself as well as a reminder to Franky? But Franky tends to be a "pot calling the kettle black," since he's the one who told Twilight back when they were pretending to be SSS agents to keep his emotions out of his daily life, yet Franky tries to pursue relationships with women left and right, without any emotional restraint (and will continue to do so even after he and Twilight have this conversation). And then there's Nightfall who, despite her constant poker face, does nothing but imagine lovey-dovey scenarios with herself and Twilight. Seems that, as much as spy people preach about keeping emotions out of the picture, emotions seep through even harder than normal. But while Franky and Nightfall don't lie to themselves about these feelings, Twilight does…will that make it all the more torturous for him when he can lie no longer?

Continue to Part 12 ->

<- Return to Part 10

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 12

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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The result of Anya's comment about Yor being bad at cooking, and Twilight's fib about being stuck on the toilet, culminates in the episode where Yor takes cooking lessons from Camilla. We've seen that Yor does occasionally cook, even though it results in mutual awkwardness for the three of them – Twilight and Anya have since stopped bringing it up so as not to hurt her feelings, but Yor is aware of their distaste nonetheless.

This episode also reveals how the Forgers have started living like an actual family. We've seen previous examples where Yor does the grocery shopping for all of them, and in this case, they always eat dinner together even if their schedules don't align. Even though they need to act like a happy family out in public, what they do inside the house shouldn't matter, like eat their meals when it's most convenient for each of them. But likely their eating arrangement grew out of overall convenience, since Anya can't cook and Yor's food is barely edible. But it's interesting to see how Twilight is so insistent that they wait for Yor before they have dinner even though he could just make the dinner anyway and put Yor's portion in the fridge until she gets home.

His expression in the manga during this scene is particularly intense.

But although he shows concern about Yor coming home late, the cuts on her hands, and her disinterest in eating dinner despite all their waiting, he chooses not to pry. It's almost as if Twilight is conflicted about how much to embrace being an actual family – on the one hand, he wants to do a normal family thing like eat dinner together, but at the same time, his spy persona is pulling him away from a normal family thing like asking Yor if anything's wrong…because the latter is something that could possibly bring out unwanted emotions in him.

His reaction to Yor here is the opposite of how he reacted when she came home with her "bullet in the butt" injury. In that case, he panicked that she was upset about something he did, but here, he's much calmer about it and doesn't dwell on it further. Perhaps by now, he's simply more trusting of their relationship. He realizes that she has her own life outside of the Forger family, and anytime she's down about something doesn't necessarily mean he's the cause of it. Plus, considering how he failed to cheer her up with all the things he had planned from their previous date, he may be doubting his ability to properly analyze her moods (something that will be showcased in full on their next date!)

At this point in the series, Yor is still convincing herself that she needs to get better at cooking only because the alternative would be losing her cover up due to a possible divorce. It's unlikely Twilight ever openly complained about her cooking, much less do anything to indicate he'd want a divorce, but the overly self-conscious Yor can't help but see that scenario. As I mentioned before, she still hasn't overcome her need to always feel like she's useful to others, and since her main profession can't help Loid and Anya, she's desperate to be useful in ways that a "normal" wife/mother would be.

During the cooking lesson, Camilla notes something that's been obvious for a while – that Yor looks less blank and robotic than she used to. Interestingly, Yor is quick to associate it with her marriage, as if she knows deep down that the marriage fulfilled more for her than just a cover up, but she's afraid to see that as a fact.

While Twilight won't admit that the marriage fulfilled anything for him besides what's needed for the mission, due to his need to be an "emotionless" spy, Yor is hesitant to admit the same for another reason…her low sense of self-worth. Throughout her life, she was never able to foster desires for herself, only what she needed to do to ensure Yuri's success. So the idea that something has since come along and given her fulfillment indicates that, for possibly the first time, she's desiring something for no other reason other than the fact that she herself wants it. And the fact that she wants something purely for herself and not because it will benefit someone else, is still a foreign idea to her, hence her hesitance to admit it.

When the time finally comes for Anya and Loid to taste Yor's stew, we're treated to several very "softly emphasized" scenes – while Anya happily eats, Loid looks at her with one of his most fatherly expressions yet, Yor is brought to tears upon seeing how much they're finally enjoying her cooking, and the three of them exchange blissful smiles across the table (while Bond watches).

It's at this moment that Yor is finally starting to comprehend how she feels being in the Forger family – while she may have thought it was only to conceal her assassin job, she admits that Anya and Loid make her happy…and, probably for the first time in her life, this is a happiness that benefits no one but herself. While she's still a long way from getting over her imposter syndrome and understanding normal social interactions, from this point on in the series, her cover up is no longer the primary reason she thinks of when it comes to being part of the Forgers.

But as is typical of Endo's sometimes devilish sense of humor, rather than ending on a high note, Yor insists that Loid and Anya try the other meal she made…which was anything but a success! Poor thing should have quit while she was ahead.

Continue to Part 13 ->

<- Return to Part 11

Excellent points @whateversawesome!

After the doggy crisis arc is when I felt SxF became more of an ensemble series. Pretty much all the stories before then focused on one or more of the Forgers. But after that, we began to see a lot of chapters focus on the side characters, like the Eden kids.

It's natural for long-running manga series, especially those classified as "shonen," to develop large casts of characters and spend many chapters focused on them while the main characters aren't seen for a while. I think because SxF is so different from most shonen series, and because the Forgers were the main focus for a long time in the beginning and are what got many people into the series, there's disdain about Endo wanting to "grow" the series beyond its basic premise and titular characters. But no matter how many characters a series has or how often chapters will focus on side characters, the focus can never stay away from the "real" main character for long. I feel this is especially true for SxF because the cast is relatively small compared to more standard shonen series. The bi-weekly schedule and recent long breaks are what's making the aftertaste of every chapter linger on longer than usual, and giving the impression that this is what the current status quo is going to be when that really isn't the case.

And yes, while the Eden kids have taken the spotlight recently, an 8-chapter arc and short mission (sandwiched between two chapters where they were not the focus) is really not enough to see them as becoming main characters, at least in my opinion. I've never seen a series where the main characters change at any point, only side characters getting time to shine. It just seems that way because, again, of how long the hijacking arc was stretched out. But I think anyone who goes back some time later and rereads the recent chapters back to back, the focus on the Eden kids will seem much more brief than it was reading the chapters as they release. It really is a very different experience binging a manga compared to getting dribs and drabs bi-weekly.

Now this is purely speculation, and anyone feel free to correct me if you have information about this, but what may have happened (and is totally normal) is that when Endo first started writing SxF, he didn't necessarily plan for it to go on for long. So he was originally going to keep the story simpler and not create a large cast of characters and expanded world-building. But once the series exploded into popularity, obviously everyone wanted it to go on longer. So Endo had to figure out ways to grow the series' universe and cast, and a good way to do that is to explore the side characters more, giving them their own subplots, which in turn helps reveal more of the politics and lore of the setting in ways that focusing only on the Forgers may not have been able to. But ultimately, because the Forgers are the main characters, every chapter that focuses on them has to be more carefully constructed - because their relationships with each other and the other characters is what the main conflict and eventual conclusion of the series depends on. Even if side characters get the focus for a while, the Forgers are the face of the series in every aspect of marketing media and merch, so Endo can't stay away from them for too long!

But in the end, in my many years of being in fandoms, I've learned that this is one of the risks of falling in love with someone else's creation - the creator has their own vision and interpretations of what they want to see for the story and characters that may not align with our own. But unless they do something absolutely batshit insane with the series (which has never happened) I don't feel it's my place to criticize them for whatever direction they want to take with their creation. It's their story and characters after all, and it would be impossible for them to make sure every aspect of their work pleases everyone. They have no obligation to do things the way I want, so I'd rather they do what they feel is best. In my experience, that always leads to the better outcome ;)

I really hope this doesn't come off as hate, I just wanted someone else's input - I feel like the eden kids have become more of the main characters than the forgers have. I know we just finished an important arc with them but it feels as though every other chapter is centered around them. We haven't had a chapter with the forgers together since Anya got rescued and that wasn't even a whole chapter. it feels as though the manga's shifted from its core (a spy dad, assassin mom, esper child and a dog that can see the future). I guess this could just be because of the update schedule though making everything feel slow paced and some plotlines random at times. Again, I hope this doesn't come off as hate. I still love and enjoy the story, and was curious to hear the opinion of another.

Hi! Thank you for reaching out. Your question doesn't come as hate at all and it'll be my pleasure to answer it :)

Your feelings and frustration are totally valid. A lot of us got into Spy x family because of the Forgers (and some of us Twiyor specifically) and miss seeing them. So, let me tell you how I see things both as a writer and as a reader.

As a writer: I'm not worried about where sxf is going because I've written plenty of stories and I can see the seams (meaning the construction of the story). However, I know not everyone is a writer, so this illustration may be useful for everyone:

The beginning of sxf had a great exposition of the characters and the story. This is the part where the readers fall in love and get attached to the characters.

I know it's been going for 79 chapters, but in my opinion, we're barely leaving #2 (conflict) and entering #3 (rising action). Endo set the conflict and not quite started the action yet. So we're just entering the middle of the story.

In my experience (both as a reader and writer), when the middle of the story begins is not the most exciting part and, depending on the story and author, the middle can feel long.

In Spanish, the middle a story is called "nudo", which means "knot". This is where the story gets tangled and very complicated. In fact, the more complicated, the better, because it means that it'll be hard to resolve and the stakes will be high during the climax.

The purpose of the middle of a story is to point towards the climax. This is where the author has to build the tension to get there, where the conflict gets thicker and thicker.

Now, has Endo been doing this?

YES.

Evidence of this are the whole bus kidnapping arc: where he told us how the SSS and government behave towards its citizens (even when they're children). THIS will be key in the story. And the latest 78 doggie competition chapter: where Handler and Twilight literally talk about the main plot of the story.

This reminds us the main plot is still about Donovan Desmond and Project Apple. This doesn't seem random to me. And the fact that we've gotten so much Eden makes me think that Eden is key in the main plot too.

As a writer, his job is to point out to the main plot and head to the climax. If he's been doing that with Eden chapters, that means that's where we're going.

The way I see it, Twilight, Yor, and Anya (Spy, Assassin and Esper) are the main characters, but not the only characters. Because of its cuteness and wholesomeness, it's easy to think of Spy x Family is a simple story about a Spy who adopts a little girl and falls in love with an assassin.

It is not.

This is a monster of a story.

Think of it as a big tree. Stories like this have many branches (secondary characters and side stories) that are connected to the main plot and serve to lead the plot towards the climax. Examples: Lord of the Rings, Fruits Basket, Attack on Titan.

My point is that in these Monster Stories, the plot may not always focus on the main characters, but in the end, everything, every little branch and side story came together to let the main characters rule the story and get to that explosive climax.

And I believe that's what Endo is doing here.

Is it the most exciting thing in the world right now? No.

Sometimes development can feel like a total drag; especially if chapters come out every two weeks and we're all eager for more.

As a writer, I recommend patience. We'll get there, it's just going to take some time.

Now...

As a reader (and a fan): *Big sigh* Yes, I miss the Forgers (and Twiyor) so much and every time there's a new chapter I feel sad we didn't get any interaction.

Yes, I want to see the romance, the pinning, the angst, the first kiss. ALL of it!! At least give me the Forgers shenanigans...

But there is no point in getting upset about it.

Yes, we're kind of in a dry spot in the story, but personally I'm still enjoying it. I'm so grateful for all the good friends I've made thanks to Spy x family. On top of it, I've been having tons of fun writing fics analyzing, and discussing things with other fans.

There's so much talent in our fandom and during this dry season, it's the fans with their gorgeous fanarts and awesome stories what is keeping the fandom engaged and happy. There's no need to feel bored while we wait for the Forgers to come back (and Twiyor to kiss!), let's wait together. Let's have fun together!

One last thing worth mentioning...

I've said it before. It's okay to take a break. There is absolutely no hate in this advice: If the story is becoming too frustrating, if it's detrimental for mental health, if it's becoming more of a bother than a source of happiness, it's okay to take some time off. It's okay to get into other things, other stories and other fandoms. And it's okay to come back after a while to check up on any progress and it's okay to move on too.

Thank you so much for the ask. I wrote a long answer because, as you can see, I'm a big fan of stories and writing.

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 13

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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During the episode where Anya has to give a report on her parents' work, we learn more about Yor's job as an assassin, which sheds some insightful light on the theme of moral ambiguity in the series. During an interview for the Spy x Family fanbook, Endo states that the Forgers should not be seen as shining examples of moral virtue; he doesn't think it's correct to only see their "nice family" side. And he's right of course, as both Twilight and Yor have professions that revolve around immoral things, like deception and killing. But while Twilight doesn't see those he has to kill or manipulate as "bad guys" necessarily – they're either helpers or hindrances to his missions and that's it – Yor's view is much more black and white. In her mind, all of her targets are traitorous villains, and by killing them, she can take pride in knowing that she's helping her country, much like a soldier.

While she does try to maintain some humanity in her work, like being extremely careful not to kill the wrong person and making sure her targets die a painless death, it's clear that her view of being an assassin is more straightforward than Twilight's view of being a spy. We don't yet know exactly how Yor became an assassin, but we do know that she started as a child, so it makes sense that she'd be brainwashed into a naive interpretation of her job as simply "helping her country by getting rid of bad guys" (unlike Twilight, who was an adult when he became a spy). And, as I mentioned before, she likely had to forgo a proper education because of her work, and so missed out on many real-world experiences that would allow her to think more critically about the morality of her profession. From what we've seen of her work, eliminating the "bad guys" is technically what she's doing, but we also know that there may come a time when someone she's sent to assassinate is not the villainous scum that she's used to…someone like Twilight perhaps? Just as Twilight's worldview may shatter when he realizes he cares too much for Yor and Anya to continue to deceive them, Yor's childlike opinion of her job would certainly be crushed when she realizes she's being sent to kill people who are not always the "bad guys" that Shopkeeper tells her they are.

Anya eventually decides to use Twilight's cover up job as a psychiatrist for her report. But at the end of their excursion, when she hastily puts together the sandbox exercise, we see another example of Twilight truly empathizing with her. We saw him start to take a less strict approach in the episode where she got her first stella, where he made an effort to find specific activities she would enjoy rather than continue to push her to be a scholar. But here, his reaction to her chaotic creation in the sandbox is anything but his usual standoffish attitude – he panics about how much stress she must have been under, not only from being in the orphanage, but also from being suddenly dragged to a stranger's house. He even starts blaming himself for not realizing it sooner (has he always been prone to this line of thought, or is Yor's imposter syndrome continuing to rub off on him?)

His fatherly side is forced out again not too long later when a jealous Bond chews up Anya's Penguinman plush. When Anya adamantly cries that she only wants the plush her papa gave her and won't accept a replacement, Twilight complies. He spends time carefully mending Penguinman (while Yor sits by his side watching intently, giving her full moral support. It's just like her to look that concerned as if he's performing surgery on someone, since she knows how important Penguinman is to Anya!)

Afterwards, Twilight has just the right things to say to Anya to make her feel better about the whole situation, like how honorable Penguinman's "scars" are, and even quoting an episode of Spy Wars when Bond comes over to apologize.

The Twilight that first adopted Anya and saw nothing but annoyance in her irrational behavior, would certainly not have adapted so well to the situation. Yet another example of how his skills as a father are improving, slowly but surely.

Continue to Part 14 ->

<- Return to Part 12

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 14

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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While it is an anime-only story, the episode where Yor brings Anya her gym clothes helps establish the current state of Yor's character, since it will be challenged soon. We see how hard she tries to be a supportive wife to Loid and a good mother to Anya. But despite the fact that they show appreciation for what she does and don't harp on her mistakes, her self-doubt makes her continue to be unnecessarily hard on herself.

This helps set the stage for Nightfall's introduction a few episodes later, which brings the first real romantic tension in the series…a tension that will eventually force both Twilight and Yor to take a step forward in their relationship.

When Nightfall first visits the Forgers and initially spends time alone with Yor, Yor is understandably nervous – this is the first person besides Yuri and Franky whom she's had to entertain at the house while keeping up her wife/mother facade (plus Loid isn't there to help her this time).

Twilight's first reaction upon seeing Nightfall in his home is that of concern, since it's unusual for WISE agents to interact with each other without good reason. But when she starts laying on the condescending comments, especially in terms of Yor not doing his errands for him, he becomes irritated. Similar to when Swan was making misogynist comments about Yor during the Eden interview, and Twilight insisted on sticking up for her, he reacts the same here (though he has to be more subtle about it so as not to let on that Fiona is a fellow spy). In both cases, it would have benefited his situation if he placated them, but it seems like he can't hold back whenever Yor is slighted, whether by a stranger or a fellow WISE agent.

The two spies exchange glares, with Nightfall stating that they should review whatever tactics he has going on for the operation, and Twilight retorting that it's not her place to make such a decision.

As Yor prepares their drinks, the meaning of Fiona's last statement – that Loid complains about her at work – starts to sink in. Even though she knew nothing about Fiona prior to that day, her inner insecurities already start creating extreme scenarios in her head. She imagines Loid wanting to take Fiona as his wife instead because he thinks Yor is so useless. And of course, her lacking self-esteem makes her unable to blame him if he really does feel that way.

At this point in the series, she's already stated that she's grateful she married Loid and is happy to be in the Forger family. And while she did have internal conflicts along the way about whether she's fit for the role, this is the first time something external, something she has no control over, is threatening to take her newfound happiness away.

There's no concrete evidence that Loid complaining to Fiona about Yor is a lie, but there's plenty of reason to assume it is. I've discussed about Twilight being a non-judgmental person who never speaks or even thinks ill of others, so I can't imagine him suddenly complaining to a coworker, especially a coworker who's in on his mission. There would also be no reason for him to react the way he did to Nightfall's condescending remarks about Yor if he was in agreement with her.

The insight we get about Nightfall, both from her own inner monologues and from Anya reading her mind (and discovering her unhinged obsession with Twilight), reveals that she would be the exact opposite of Yor in terms of the support she could offer Twilight. All she fantasizes herself doing for him are either related to his work, or the typical wife responsibilities like laundry and cooking…all of which are things he's capable of doing himself, albeit if he had a little more free time. But Twilight had specifically said that he's counting on Yor to be everything that he's not…namely, giving Anya and, though he won't admit it, himself, the affection and emotional support he's not allowed to give. But Nightfall, being a hardened spy like him, can only think of a wife role in "for the mission" terms too, and to her, that means doing all the tedious chores and errands so he doesn't have to. She can't imagine Twilight would actually enjoy doing something "mundane" like walking the dog for example. The kinds of things Nightfall wants to do for him are things a personal assistant would do – complete surface-level fulfillment, but lacking interpersonal, soulful understanding.

@queenofapeacefuldawn describes the contrast between Yor's and Nightfall's relationship with Twilight perfectly in this reblog. To quote:

"…Yor sees him as an actual, flawed human being, and knows that as a person, he needs emotional support too, especially in raising a child, something that Yor relates with. She wants to be there with him, and although their marriage is more of an agreement, (at the beginning, anyway), she wants to be a partner to Loid, for his emotional support, and for Anya's wellbeing.

Meanwhile, Nightfall sees Twilight as a perfect, god-like figure, who can control his emotions easily, and won't need any emotional help. She thinks that all he will need are material comforts, not emotional comfort. In Nightfall's spiel, she never once thinks about Twilight's emotional stance, which is a kind-of implication that she thinks his emotions are secondary— according to her training. She does not intend to— or maybe doesn't even know how to, given her training— provide emotional comfort."

@connoisseursdecomfort also brings up the fact that because Twilight has such a disillusioned view about romantic relationships, it's not possible to win him over by romance alone, which is exactly what Nightfall is trying to do. However, while Yor tries to comfort and help him whenever she can, she also keeps a respectable distance from him and his personal affairs. But probably the most important thing she does in his eyes (and is something he'll tell her in full later) is being a good mother to Anya. Loid never asked that she remain Anya's mother after the interview, yet she chose to anyway, with her upmost sincerity. And despite that, as Connoisseursdecomfort also mentions in her post, Yor never uses Anya as a way of getting closer to Loid. The main strike against Nightfall is not that she sees the role of a wife as more of a servant to Twilight than anything else, but she sees the role of a mother that way as well. As such, unlike Yor, Anya's personal happiness is secondary to how she can become a "stella procuring machine" for the sake of Twilight's mission (even Twilight admits later that Nightfall has no parenting skills).

Nightfall can't imagine that Twilight's happiness could be tied to anything besides the success of his missions, like the happiness of his (fake) daughter for example (ironically, Twilight felt the same way back when he was pressuring Anya to study, until Yor stepped in and made him see things a different way).

As expected, Anya wants nothing to do with such a harsh mother and does what she can in the moment to thwart Fiona – she lovingly nuzzles Yor's lap and says she loves her mama (of course, Yor practically melts at this unexpected show of affection while Twilight is just puzzled). She then goes a step further by saying how lucky she is to have a mama and papa who love each other and how grateful she is to be in the Forger family. After hearing Anya say all this, Yor can't hold back her insecurity any longer – she can't let Anya's happiness in the Forger family be compromised by Loid deciding to marry Fiona because she's so useless (as is typical of her, she thinks of others first and doesn't realize that her own happiness is at stake too). She turns to Loid with a face full of resolve, much to his surprise, and exclaims that she'll try harder to be a better wife.

It's ambiguous as to whether the compliments he proceeds to give her are genuine or not, since Nightfall notes that his smile is fake. However, she also notes that she can see traces of real emotions seeping through. So, as is becoming usual for him, he thinks he's lying, but more truth than not ends up being revealed. Since Nightfall is someone who was not only trained by Twilight, but has "studied" him for a long time and knows all his various fake identities, I think we're meant to trust her assessment of his emotional state (also, as we'll see later on, Twilight's comments about how hard Yor already works and how much Anya loves her are not lies).

When he chases after Nightfall in the rain to give her an umbrella, she flat out tells him that he's gone soft. And once again, just like the times Franky warned him that he shouldn't grow attached to his (fake) family, Twilight doesn't deny the statement at all.

Why would he not deny something so detrimental to his spy profession, especially to a fellow spy? If he was confident he wasn't actually developing feelings for his family, there's no reason for him to not say so and put her mind at ease. So the only other explanation is that, deep down, he is starting to feel attached. But due to his lack of emotional comprehension, he never realized he could ever have such feelings, so when someone points it out, he's at a loss, which causes him to either change the subject or just not say anything, like in this case with Nightfall.

Continue to Part 15 ->

<- Return to Part 13

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 15

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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The Campbelldon tennis tournament is the first time we see Twilight spend a considerable amount of time with someone with whom he doesn't have to act as Loid Forger…and the contrast is striking. There's no denying that he and Nightfall are exceptional at their work and make a great spy team. But, as I previously discussed, that doesn't mean she'd also be a good wife and mother.

While the tactics that the duo use to overcome their opponents are entertaining, I always found the tennis scenes a bit on the boring side, and I realized it's because Twilight and Nightfall have no chemistry beyond working well together as spies. Because Nightfall doesn't want to see anything in Twilight beyond a hardened spy – in fact, she resents the emotions he's developed rather than try to understand them – she doesn't bring out anything new or "real" in him during their interactions. Rather than want to know all of him, she idolizes the spy side of him and refuses to accept his "realer" side…which is very hypocritical of her considering the fact that she's developed intense feelings for him…feelings that, according to her, a spy has no business having. She accepts her own feelings of love for him, in fact, those feelings are what drives most of what she thinks and does, yet the fact that he's showing feelings for others (besides her) bothers her.

On the other hand, while Twilight does show that he cares for Nightfall as her mentor, for example, when he saves her from the rubber bullet and tells her not to push herself too hard after seeing the bruises on her hand, there's no indication that he has any "inappropriate" feelings for her (if Nightfall can tell when his real emotions for his family are seeping through, I'm sure she'd be the first to notice if he had similar feelings for her and would react accordingly).

But the kinds of "inappropriate" feelings she's accusing him of having for his family are, ironically, the kinds of feelings she wants him to have for her alone. As I mentioned before, Nightfall and Franky are both pots calling the kettle named Twilight, black.

Meanwhile, Yor is still convinced that Fiona is a threat to her marriage. Even though Loid had given no indication that Fiona means anything to him besides being a coworker, Yor's insecurities make the threat very real in her mind. She shudders at the thought of going back to her old life where Yuri was always worried about her (once again, thinking of someone else's peace of mind before her own). She has so much anxiety about the situation that she even starts to slightly regress to her old habit of considering assassination to solve her problem: she fiercely squeezes a tennis ball in her hand while thinking that she'll do "whatever" it takes to ensure that her fear doesn't become real…but she quickly stops before she can go further with that idea.

At the end of the tennis tournament, we see another example of Twilight being a thoughtful guy behind his stoic demeanor by giving a pep talk to the defeated Campbelldon kids. Giving them words of encouragement did nothing for his mission, but he chose to take the time to do it anyway because, as I've pointed out many times before, he always tries to consider people's feelings as long as it doesn't conflict too heavily with his work.

When Nightfall inexplicably challenges Yor to a tennis match, Yor's fear about Loid seeing Fiona as a better wife than her, pushes her to accept. As is typical of Twilight, he notices that Yor is uncomfortable about it and tells her she doesn't have to accept, but she insists. He also tells Nightfall to back down (because he knows she's no match for Yor's crazy strength) but Nightfall insists as well.

Twilight is intelligent and sharp about almost everything, but having lived most of his adult life only pretending to have relationships, signs of true romantic love are things he doesn't have a clue about. Hence, he has no idea what's really driving the two women to have this spontaneous tennis match (only Anya knows that!)

When Yor does indeed crush Nightfall, in typical motherly Yor fashion, the first thing she does is ask Fiona if she's okay. Then, when Fiona hastily drives off in tears, she wonders if she did something to upset her (as usual, she thinks she's to blame when someone around her becomes distressed).

While Twilight does slowly start to pick up on the fact that Yor could have the wrong idea about his relationship with Fiona, he quickly tosses that thought aside because their marriage is fake, and Yor knows it.

Even though she won the tennis match, that's still not enough to ease Yor's anxiety about Fiona's relationship with Loid. In an uncharacteristically forward way, she gets right in his face and exclaims "I beat her!" and, when all he can offer is a weak "congratulations," she shouts it again, even closer to his face than before. Twilight is obviously confused about why she's acting like this, so he doesn't know what else to say at the moment other than confirm her statement with enough enthusiasm that will hopefully satisfy her.

But him parroting what she just said did not provide the reassuring words Yor needed to hear. Since Yor doesn't understand her own feelings, and Twilight has trouble understanding hers and Anya's feelings, especially if they involve him, nobody except the audience realizes how much of a threat Fiona is to Yor's newfound security in the Forger family. With Yor not realizing her own feelings enough to ask Loid the questions that would put her mind at ease, she continues to be depressed about the situation even on the following day.

Continue to Part 16 ->

<- Return to Part 14

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 16

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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Twilight must have realized that what happened with Fiona was still bothering Yor, since he decides to secretly follow her the next day. When he sees that not only is she still depressed, but the neighbors are starting to gossip about his integrity as her husband, he knows that he has to do something fast. But since understanding women's true feelings is not his forte, especially a woman as atypical as Yor, all he thinks this would lead to is her innocently telling Yuri her concerns about Fiona, and in turn, Yuri would want to arrest him for being an adulterer…he still has yet to consider the possibility that Yor cares enough about their (fake) marriage to actually feel jealous.

He decides that in order to clear up any misunderstandings, he needs to talk to Yor and explain to her that Fiona is simply his coworker. He invites her to the bar under the ruse of simply wanting to have a drink with his wife. At the same time, Yor doesn't understand why Loid suddenly invited her out, though she senses that he wants to tell her something…and right away, her imposter syndrome creates the worst possible scenario in her head: that Loid invited her out for a final farewell drink because he's going to make Fiona his new wife.

When he mentions Fiona's name (but doesn't get to finish his sentence because Yor freaks out), that's enough to make Yor see no other outcome besides what she had been dreading since Fiona first visited them at the house. She then tries to put things in perspective – she tells herself that their marriage had only ever been for self-interest, and if Loid really wants to be with Fiona now, she should accept that fact with dignity. But as she tries to tell him that she'll withdraw from the marriage if that's what he wants, the words just won't come out.

In the episode where Yor took cooking lessons, she was finally starting to realize that being part of the Forgers gives her happiness...probably the first happiness she'd ever desired for herself alone and not for someone else. But the realization that Loid's happiness may lie elsewhere, is extremely conflicting for her: on the one hand, she of course wants him to be happy. She even thinks to herself that it's not about her, it's about helping him find happiness because that's how she's always lived her life – thinking of other people's wellbeing before her own.

But now, for what could possibly be the first time, the desire for her own happiness is gnawing in the deep recesses of her mind, vying for attention too. And, even though she doesn't yet fully understand those feelings, they're what's preventing her from simply congratulating Loid on his new wife and moving on. In a last desperate effort to tell him what her "mind" but not her "heart" wants to tell him, she chugs down a ton of booze (much to his concern).

Ironically, she downed all that booze in the hopes that it would enable her to tell Loid that she accepts his decision to marry Fiona. But instead, it brought out her true feelings, enabling her to finally ask him the question that had been bothering her for days: what exactly is his relationship with Fiona?

Her uninhibited remarks continue as she insists that she's a bad wife and not pretty like Fiona. She even brings up the time when she and Loid first met at the tailors and he had said that she was pretty, which she now is thinking was a lie (which shows how trusting she was of him even way back then, and how quickly that trust can be shattered in a vulnerable moment). At the same time, Twilight finally starts putting two and two together, coming to the conclusion that Yor isn't upset simply because she feels inferior to Fiona, but because she's jealous of her…and to him, jealousy in a woman in such a situation could only mean one thing: romantic feelings.

At this point in the series, I believe that Yor has a slight crush on Loid (though she doesn't realize it) and Twilight has some kind of special fondness for her (though he doesn't realize it). So when confronted with the idea that Yor could be romantically in love with him, he does what he always does when feelings that he doesn't want to deal with start to well up inside – he reverts to complete "Twilight Mode." And with that, he brings out the honey trap method he's used with many other women in his career. He turns on the charm and goes through all the standard romantic cues – clutching her hands in his, staring deeply into her eyes, slightly shifting guilt to her by asking if she still trusts him, and maintaining a serious, earnest expression and steady voice.

Obviously he doesn't want to lose her, and he thinks that if he doesn't at least pretend to reciprocate her romantic feelings, that's exactly what will happen. He tells himself that a good spy would be remiss not to utilize her feelings to better his own situation. I'm sure, in his mind, the outcome would be obvious: she'd be taken in by his reciprocation of her love, and they'd continue their relationship without any further disturbance to his mission, just like it was with every other woman he honey trapped before. But unfortunately for Twilight, he still has yet to fully realize that Yor is not like other women, and all his by-the-book methods of wooing won't work on her. In fact, his actions have the opposite effect. Rather than calm her down, his sudden forwardness only makes her panic even more. After all, a romantic confession was not what she had in mind – all she wanted was the reassurance that Fiona is nothing more than a coworker to Loid and that he still wants Yor to be his wife. But Twilight, with his ever-calculating mind and insistence on compartmentalizing people's feelings, jumped several steps ahead, overly simplifying the situation as "jealously equals romantic love, and romantic love must be met with romantic love (even if it's fake)."

We know from Yuri's first visit that Yor is just not ready for any kind of intimately romantic contact, and because she already has some feelings for Loid, she gets even more flustered when he's involved. When she's that emotionally unstable, especially when she's drunk, the only way she can let out her pent up emotions is through (unintentional) violence. That's exactly what happened when she and Loid were about to kiss in front of Yuri, and it's what eventually happens during this disastrous date at the bar. Not only was Yor already stressed out from the anxiety about Fiona she had bottled up inside for days, but now she was also drunk and volatile. So when Loid suddenly pressures her with a completely unexpected romantic confession, that was her breaking point. But this time, Loid doesn’t have Yuri to take the hit for him and he gets to feel the full wrath of Yor's outburst head on (or chin on in this case…she really must have held back or he would have definitely lost some teeth!)

Of course, she didn't mean to hurt him and immediately apologizes. But Twilight continues the one-sided train of thought he had before – since his confession of love didn't work, the only thing that could mean is that he was wrong and she doesn't have romantic feelings for him after all. It makes sense for him to conclude this because now he no longer has to be burdened with the fact that he might actually have such feelings for her too – in his mind, her kick was a rejection, so no need to think about pursuing his relationship with her further, which is perfectly convenient for the spy side of him (but a cop out in all other respects). But as the full force of the blow he took begins to hit him and his consciousness becomes fuzzy, his "Twilight Mode" starts to break down. He's so used to having everyone figured out, but this time, his analysis of the situation failed. For what could possibly be the first time, he read someone completely wrong, which forces his already wavering mind to go into panicked overdrive. He begins rapid-firing second guesses about his previous assessment: If Yor really doesn't have romantic feelings for him, then why was she acting that way earlier? Was she trying to do a reverse honey trap on him? Is she actually a spy too? How could someone like him completely botch an emotional analysis that badly?

Finally, just as he's about to pass out, he has no choice but to conclude that being with Yor has thrown him off balance…probably the only truthful thought he's had the whole night.

Continue to Part 17 ->

<- Return to Part 15

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 17

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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After waking up from the comforting dream about his mother, then being thrust back into the reality of his catastrophic date, Twilight's mind starts hyperventilating again. We find out that Yor was the first person to actually knock him unconscious since his training days, more proof that he really does let his guard down when he's around her (which was something he was just starting to realize himself before he passed out).

When she regrettably tells him that she understands he'd want to move on from a wife who only has brute strength, he takes a moment to reflect before responding. We don't get to hear his inner thoughts during this relatively long pause, but based on everything that just happened, there's plenty to infer about what he's thinking and why he doesn't respond immediately.

He just realized that he completely misread Yor at the bar. He threw every honey trap technique he could at her, and not only did they not work, but they ended up making things worse. After all that he put the both of them through, here she is, still feeling insecure about her ability to be a good wife...the very thing he was trying to fix by asking her out in the first place. One would expect that he has no other options left besides giving her the kinds of compliments that have made her feel better in the past, like saying that she is a good wife/mother, that he appreciates all that she does, and that Fiona is just a coworker (which is what he was originally going to tell her before he misread her and decided to take things too far with the honey trap). But instead, he does something completely unexpected, and certainly unbefitting of a spy – he reveals a vulnerable, personal part of his past to her…not as Twilight nor as Loid Forger, but as his true self.

He continues by likening the security he felt with his own mother to how safe Anya feels having Yor as her mother. We know that he's still being truthful here because we see a vision of Anya and Yor in his mind as he thinks that the kind of motherly strength Yor possess is just as important as the work he and his fellow agents do for the country. Another reason we know he's speaking his true thoughts here is because we don't get any of his usual internal monologuing about how he has to say these things "for the mission" – for this brief moment, he's choosing to live truly and fully in the moment.

This is the conversation he should have had with her back at the bar. Because their relationship was never built on standard romantic acts to begin with, but on heartfelt honestly (even if they lie about their professions). He now realizes that trying to win her over with his standard tactics would never work. It's only when he stops trying to be someone that he's not, can his interactions with Yor go smoothly. Compared to the scene at the bar, which was one misunderstanding after another, once Twilight has this genuine conversation with Yor, and stops using manipulation and deceit, the misunderstandings cease. However, there was no reason for Twilight to mention anything about his own mother, especially when revealing unnecessary things about his real life is frowned upon in the spy world. He could have complimented Yor on her strength and how good of a mother she is without bringing up his own past. So there was no other reason for him to open up to her like that other than the fact that he wanted to – in that moment, his desire to trust her was stronger than his spy rationale. For what could possibly be the first time since he became a spy, he wanted someone to know a vulnerable side of him, just as she always trusts him with all her vulnerabilities.

@itsmaferart describes this mutuality between Twilight and Yor very well in this post . To quote:

" Clearly, Twilight has been getting to know Yor and she has only shown him her most honest side: a sweet, maternal, tender, patient woman, with a positive, discreet vision, who puts love and family first. But she also shows him her most vulnerable side: she is shy, clumsy, unsociable, a lousy cook and very insecure.

That has caused Twilight to confide and show himself vulnerable to her on more than one occasion. For they, in part, share many insecurities, the same sense of responsibility and sacrifice. The truth is that feeling so much comfort with Yor has made him more sensitive, but it also makes him develop an unconscious fear that all that beauty is a lie, and he himself is falling..."

As much as Twilight wants to trust Yor completely, having lived a life based on deception after deception, he can't fully shake the feeling that the more honest and wonderful something seems, the more likely it could be a sham. And yet, he still chooses to trust her time and time again. @nitewrighter brings up  the irony in how, because their relationship is based on a mutually accepted fake marriage, that actually works in their favor. Because the marriage isn't real, they have no expectations for each other. It would be a different story if one of them knew the marriage was fake and was tricking the other, but because it's mutually transactional, everything they choose to do for each other – every little favor, every passing smile and encouraging word, every expression of affection both big and small, especially at home where they don't have to put on the facade, is all the more genuine because it's not required for their relationship. This is particularly true for Yor choosing to be a good mother to Anya, which is something Loid didn't ask her to do but he wholly appreciates it.

When Yor still expresses doubt, saying that everything she knows is only because she had to take care of Yuri, Twilight responds by saying that's precisely the reason why she excels at it – because she's been doing it since she herself was a child, she's second to none.

I mentioned previously that Yor exhibits many symptoms of imposter syndrome, one of which is always thinking you're a failure at something even though you actually excel at it, which is exactly how she views her own parenting skills. But once Twilight clearly and honestly tells her why she's such a good mother, and asks that she continue to be Anya's mother and his wife, she smiles and accepts.

As I've brought up many times before, despite everything that happened, Twilight never harbors any resentment towards Yor. He could have been annoyed that she kicked him and embarrassed him in front of everyone at the bar, but as I just discussed, he realized he was the one at fault for trying to push a romantic scenario on her that didn't actually exist. At the same time, Yor could have been upset with him for being so forward with her, but instead, she decided to tenderly take care of him until he woke up. As @piracytheorist mentioned, Twilight was completely unprepared to receive such softness after everything that happened. This was why he was so on edge as soon as he woke up in her lap. But even though he realized he was in the wrong, she still blamed herself and continued to see her brute strength as a flaw. This is why telling her the story about his mother was so important – the strength that she sees as a flaw is something he greatly admires, so much so that he's willing to reveal such a private memory to her.

The fact that he did this not only indicates his willingness to trust, but also his realization that his usual "Romeo" tactics won't work on her. Gentleness and honesty (as honest as a spy can be at least) are what she responds to. He realized that by doing the opposite at the bar, everything went wrong. If he had simply gone through with his original plan of telling her that Fiona is just a coworker, things would have turned out fine. But instead, when he thought she may have romantic feelings for him, he decided to take advantage of the situation with a spontaneous honey trap, which backfired right in his face (or rather, chin).

When they finally return home, Yor has a continuation of the revelation she had at the end of the cooking lesson episode. There, she realized how happy she is being in the Forger family. And now, she realizes that she's too attached to it to willingly leave it behind. This explains why, back at the bar, she couldn't bring herself to tell Loid she wishes him well with his new wife – she was willing to accept that turn of events in her mind, but her heart was refusing.

I have to say that at the end of this story arc, Yor is ahead of Twilight as far as coming to understand and accept her own feelings. As I just explained, she now understands how much she loves being in the Forger family beyond just her cover up. But Twilight still has yet to reveal any new feelings or thoughts about Yor and Anya from all this, so we can only infer. Obviously he's shown that he trusts Yor enough to tell her a personal detail about his real life, and he truly wants her to continue to be his wife and Anya's mother. But we also know that he misinterpreted her kick as a rejection of his romantic confession, when in reality it was just her misdirected emotional outburst due to him coming on too strong, and her being too drunk. So at this point in Twilight's mind, even if this incident has deepened his feelings for her, he still thinks she rejected him. Like I mentioned before, convincing himself that her kick was a rejection is a convenient way for him to not have to confront his emotions further…but for how long, only time will tell.

Continue to Part 18 ->

<- Return to Part 16

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 18

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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In hopes of finding a way to meet Desmond at the Imperial Scholar's mixer, Twilight sneaks around Eden in disguise. But unbeknownst to him, Anya reads his mind and realizes what he's trying to do. She urges Damian to meet with his father in spite of the second thoughts he has. Twilight hides behind a building, listening as she says she's not even sure if her papa likes her or not, but she's still going to tell him that she failed her test because she loves and believes in him. We don't get to hear any of Twilight's thoughts during her speech, and his expression remains neutral. Even when the kids leave, his first reaction is confusion about why Anya would suddenly say such things, but happy nonetheless that she did indeed persuade Damian to meet his father.

However, when he does finally meet with Desmond later on, it seems that Anya's words may have struck a chord in him. He puts on his most extreme Loid Forger performance during his encounter with Damian while looking for the "lost" keychain, trying his best to find any opening to invite himself to meet Damian's father. And of course, as is typical for him, beneath all the pretending, he does genuinely feel bad about what he has to do. He internally apologizes to Damian for having to cut in on his reunion with his father, but for the sake of his mission (a.k.a. the happiness of many over the happiness of few) it must be done.

Once Desmond finally appears, the pressure ramps up as Twilight has to choose every word carefully so as not to arouse even an ounce of suspicion. He does all he can to find a way for Desmond to agree to talk with him more, but eventually Desmond halts the conversation. However, when Damian expresses his disdain for his father's nonchalant attitude about Anya punching him, Twilight voices his agreement with Damian.

This is probably the most major example thus far of Twilight doing something he personally feels is right even though it could potentially be detrimental to his mission. I say this is the most major example because having a favorable relationship with Desmond is literally all he's been striving for since starting Operation Strix, so he shouldn't take any risk no matter how slight, like showing support for Damian's disagreement with Desmond. Yet, he chooses to take Damian's side over that of Desmond's, similar to how he chose to stick up for Anya and Yor at the Eden interview even though it went against what was best for the mission. While it is true that it's better for "plan B" if Damian has a good relationship with his father, it's also a very delicate subject for Twilight to pursue at that moment, when Desmond had only just met him. Regardless, he's able to steer the conversation in a way that gets his points across but doesn't come off as hostile to Desmond.

He first tries to evoke some kindred feelings with Desmond by talking about the struggles he has dealing with Anya's irrational behavior and how challenging it is to raise a child (perhaps his confusion about Anya's behavior from earlier encouraged him to bring this up).

When Desmond flatly responds that people can never truly understand each other, even their own children, Twilight is taken aback. His darkened expression betrays a hint of resentment towards the other man's pessimistic ideals, but he manages to keep up the Loid Forger act regardless. In typical Twilight fashion, he's able to express his true ideals under the guise of his fake identity – in this case, he uses his cover-up job as a psychiatrist to explain why he thinks it's best for people to keep trying to understand others even if they can only meet them "in the middle" so to speak. He also mentions that even though much of what Anya says doesn't make sense to him, acknowledging her nonetheless creates an opportunity for understanding. And as he's saying these things to Desmond, we can hear what he's really thinking at the time – that he'll never stop trying to understand others.

He cleverly ends his spiel by proposing that Desmond had in fact done what he had described – decided to take time out of his busy schedule to meet with his son. That would have been a good spot to end the conversation and not push his luck, but instead, in his shrewd Twilight way, he decides to help bring father and son closer by mentioning the speech Damian gave about Desmond for the class project. He even made an attempt to score Anya points with Damian by saying that she was the one who told him about it because she was so moved. From there, he's able to smoothly steer the conversation to Desmond's job as political chairman, from which he then creates an opening for himself to express his admiration for Desmond and an interest in his political party.

Once Desmond confirms that he knows Loid Forger's name and has formed a favorable opinion of him, Twilight wraps up the whole encounter by making sure "plan B" is still an option; he tells Damian that Anya doesn't hate him and asks if he'd try to get along with her.

This whole scene really showcases how exceptional Twilight is at being a spy – his masterful command of deceitful words that he uses to steer people into feeling what he wants them to feel and view things in a way that benefits his mission, but aren't completely against his moral principles either. As I mentioned before, attempting to reconcile father and son's relationship, even going so far as to pat Damian on the shoulder and ramble on about how great his speech was, may have been pushing it a bit for his very first meeting with Desmond. But as we've seen many times before, Twilight is an empathetic person. Even while in the midst of making major progress with one of his missions, like finally meeting Desmond, he decides to say and do what he feels is right no matter how risky. I'm sure he felt bad for Damian after realizing what kind of a person Desmond is. And perhaps he can also relate to Damian due to his estranged relationship with his own father.

Continue to Part 19 ->

<- Return to Part 17

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Season 1 Wrap-Up

*This is a wrap-up post for my Twiyor analysis series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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As some of you may know, I'm fairly new to the SxF fandom, having only started watching the anime in October of last year. But it didn't take long for me to become hyperfixated enough to binge the manga, start my own blog, and develop ideas for analysis posts.

I've always enjoyed meta writing for my favorite fandoms, and SxF is definitely one of those! While I like many things about the story and characters, the Forgers overall, especially Twiyor, are my favorite thing about it, so I wanted to focus my first analysis posts on them. During my early months in the fandom, I found lots of good analyses and was impressed by the amount of talented fan writers out there. But rather than write random stand-alone posts, I wanted to express all my thoughts in chronological order. I eventually came up with the idea for this post series in December of last year, and after spending a solid month of writing during most of my free time, I finally felt I had enough to begin posting on a weekly basis.

Now that I've come to the end of the season 1 posts, I want to express my sincerest thanks to everyone who read them, especially those who left nice comments and reblogs. Even for those of you who only left likes, I appreciate it! I pay attention to the notes on my blog and it always makes my day to see the same people interacting with each new post every week. It's especially gratifying when I see a new person come along and leave a like on each post in order, one after another! In the many fandoms I've been in over the years, I always write for myself and my own enjoyment first, regardless of whether other people will enjoy my writing too. But it's nice to know that other people can also appreciate how I interpret things.

So here's what's going to happen with the post series going forward…

Since I want to continue keeping the posts as manga spoiler-free as possible, I won't start releasing the next batch of posts until season 2 airs (it's scheduled to air in October). I'll most likely release part 19 and onward towards the middle or end of season 2's run. I already have a good idea of what manga chapters will be adapted and will get them queued up beforehand.

On that note, I did end up having to tag a few of the season 1 posts for manga spoilers. I tried to avoid it as much as possible; I only discussed manga spoilers if I felt not doing so would be a disservice to my analysis. However, once season 2 airs, all but part 18 should be safe for anime-only fans! (I'll go back to those posts and remove the spoiler tags)

At some point during or slightly before season 2's airing, I plan to reblog all of my Twiyor analysis posts in order. If I can get the timing right, I hope to reblog part 18 (the last season 1 post) right before my start date for the first season 2 post. I'll probably do the reblogs just a few days apart before doing weekly releases again when I get to the new posts (for the reblogs, I'll be using the hashtag "#reblog for season 2 hype")

I don't have any other big analysis posts planned until then, with one exception…I do plan to write a post about Anya. I originally wanted to include her in the chronological series, but since her character arc is simpler and more straight-forward compared to Twilight's and Yor's, I didn't have nearly as much to say about her and figured it'd be best to talk about her in a separate post. Not sure when I'll release that post but should be sometime before season 2 as well.

Guess that's all for now! Thank you again to everyone who read this post series and I look forward to more compelling discussions in season 2!

When's part 19 of Twlight and Yor's relationshio analysis? Been binge reading and I can't wait for your take on these new episodes!

Thank you so much @dovcarla, I'm glad you're enjoying my analysis series 😊

I'm actually going to make an update post about the project soon, but I'll spoil you a bit here and say Part 19 will be released in December! I only have time on the weekend to work on them and they take me a long time to write, make screenshots, revise, and proofread. Plus I don't want to release them too soon or risk getting caught up with the new episodes as I'm still keeping the posts manga spoiler-free. But don't worry, they will be here soon! (Part 19 and Part 20 are already mostly complete 😁)

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 19

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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The episode where Bond assists Twilight with his mission at the laboratory may not seem like a significant story, but it's actually the first time Twilight has spent a considerable amount of time alone with someone (Bond) with whom he doesn't have to put on any airs – not as Loid Forger, nor as an aloof spy. He has no reason to hide anything from Bond, someone who can't talk or judge. So who is the man revealed in such a rare situation? While at first he's annoyed that Bond's presence could hinder his mission, his annoyance soon turns to empathy. With an uncharacteristically concerned look on his face, he asks Bond if he came to get revenge on the scientists who hurt him and his friends.

We saw in the doggy crisis arc that Twilight has compassion for dogs when he refused to harm the German shepherd that attacked him, and when he gave sincere thanks to Bond for saving Anya. But this episode shows further proof that Twilight sees Bond as more than just "a dog." Not only does he show empathy for what Bond had to suffer through in the past, but he's projecting the very human notion of vengeance onto a dog. He also chooses to trust Bond's instincts rather than send him away…and as a result, his mission is a success! As we'll see in later episodes, his bond with Bond (no pun intended) will only continue to grow.

Unfortunately the same can't be said for Bond's bond with Yor (though it's a totally one-sided thing). We as the audience know that Yor would never act violently towards Bond, but thanks to his misinterpretation of his vision of blackness (which Endo confirms in the fanbook did not mean death), he thinks her food will indeed kill him.

As @piracytheorist pointed out, Bond may not understand that Yor's toxic food is completely unintentional. Since he was traumatized by his time at the lab, where they fed him rancid food, he may equate being fed bad food to some kind of punishment. Plus, being a dog, he may not understand that humans' actions don't necessarily reflect their true intent (misinterpreting the actions of others is such a common theme in Spy x Family, I can even tie it back to Bond!) Doesn't help that Anya put the idea in his head that Yor will kill him if he disobeys her.

It's unfortunate, but at least Yor is oblivious to the fact that Bond thinks this way about her. I know she would feel awful if she knew he was scared of her!

After the "Pastry of Knowledge" incident at Eden, Twilight is again faced with more failing test grades from Anya. But this time, he's more composed about it, even noting that she would have done well on the classical language part had she not made so many spelling mistakes.

@sophiamarieispinkbunny-chan brings up a good point in this post that it's unusual for the ever-suspicious Twilight to dismiss the fact that Anya is knowledgeable about an archaic language of all things. But as we've seen time and time again, he's more likely to turn a blind eye to anything suspicious about Yor, Anya, and Bond compared to anyone else.

This suggests that, though he won't admit it, he could possibly be afraid…afraid that if he digs too deep, he'll learn things about them that could lead to them having to separate. The only exception to this so far has been when he investigated Yor after Yuri's first visit, which is understandable since having an SSS officer so close to him could be disastrous (and of course, he felt guilty about it after).

But in Anya's case here, he not only decides that's it not worth thinking about, he even cooks her favorite dinner that night (hamburger steak) without any complaints. Compared to the very first time he was confronted with her poor school skills, he's definitely learning to be a more understanding father (and a less meticulous spy).

Some time later, Yor meets up with Franky to help him rescue a lost cat. This is probably the first time the two of them have been alone together without Loid present, so Yor feels a bit uneasy about this unexpected social interaction. In typical Yor fashion, she expresses concern for the cat and is eager to help, but also thinks she may be more of a bother to Franky. She also hesitates when referring to Loid as her husband. As I've mentioned in previous posts, at this point in the series, I believe she has a crush on Loid but is clueless about those feelings, so she gets flustered whenever their relationship is brought up.

I find it funny how Yor with all her crazy strength and assassin skills is totally powerless against cats clinging to her! Obviously her power is strictly reserved for the "bad guys" she's sent to eliminate on her jobs (or anyone who threatens her loved ones). Innocent animals are safe, even if they scratch her face a bit!

As Franky comes up with ways to catch Kopi, Yor gives him her full supportive side by continuously praising him for his inventions. However, she has no hesitation about sacrificing said inventions to prevent Kopi from running into traffic.

It not only makes sense that she'd be ignorant about how much work goes into building such a machine, but it also makes sense that she holds nothing back when trying to save someone who's in trouble, even if all notions of acting "normal" go out the window – whether it's this cat, the Eden cow, or confronting SSS officers that threatened her family.

As a side note, another example of Yor's wholesome, humbling personality that's only present in the Japanese version, is that she gives the honorific "-san," which denotes respect, usually translated as "Mister" or "Miss," to everyone (besides Yuri, but that's normal for an older sibling). Not just children like Anya, but even animals. She calls Bond "Bond-san," and in this episode, she calls Kopi "Kopi-san." She even called the terrorists from the doggy crisis arc "terrorist-san."

In fact, Yor uses keigo (the polite form of Japanese speech) excessively, almost to an abnormal amount. This could be a reflection of many things about her character, such as her low self-esteem, eagerness to put those around her at ease, and the possibility that Garden instilled the idea in her that she's just a "soldier" for her country, so she never gave a thought about fulfilling her own identity. However, as I'll discuss later, there are some rare and telling moments where she drops this filter and lets her raw feelings out.

When Yor returns to work later, we see that being "normal" is something she's still hung up about, since she gets very excited when Sharon suggests that she may have finally become "somewhat" so. This scene also shows how good she feels after helping someone out, which carries over to her meeting with Shopkeeper soon after.

Speaking of which, we once again see Yor's naivety about her assassin job that I discussed in Part 13: she thinks of it as just getting rid of "evildoers." But despite her strong desire for this, I never got the impression that she likes being an assassin, as in, she enjoys the act of killing people. Compared to a typical view one would have of someone who willingly kills for a living, she doesn't relish in her murders, taunt her opponents, or display any kind of pleasure from their pain. As we'll see throughout the cruise arc, she's very professional about it, being indiscriminate and earnest with her targets. She kills solely for the sake of others, whether it's to help her family or her country. What she desires is the result of the work – eliminating "bad guys," not the actual act of elimination.

The scene where Shopkeeper launches a surprise attack at Yor, only for her to easily dodge it, reminds me of the fact that Yor is sometimes described as "clumsy," but she's definitely not clumsy on the physical side.

Usually characters in anime/manga who are shown to have traits similar to Yor, like exaggerated naivety and a low sense of self-worth, are also shown to be clumsy in the typical sense of dropping things, tripping, and making messes. But, while Yor has tasks she's not good at, like cooking and sewing, and she occasionally has trouble controlling her incredible strength, she's definitely not clumsy. I'm really glad that Endo didn't give her the "clumsy" trait to go along with her social awkwardness, as it would make no sense for a highly skilled assassin to not be anything but perfectly coordinated with their body. We see many examples of this with Yor, not just in how she overpowers every opponent she encounters, but smaller things, like in her introduction episode where she catches the tray with her foot, and how she swiftly leaps and clings to the ceiling at the pet adoption fair without anyone noticing.

Continue to Part 20 ->

<- Return to Part 18