Wow!!!! You are awesome. Your explanation makes perfect sense of everything. Thanks for enlightening us. What are your thoughts on the epilogue though? How is I talking to E when E is dead? Was this a past discussion or does it imply I joined them in death?
haha tbh even I don't know about the epilogue. The "ending" arc of PRIDE was so disjointed from the rest of the story, that even if I feel like the epilogue belongs to the past, I can't exactly place WHERE it would be exactly. Going on my instincts right now, I think the epilogue was in the past (because ch 30 shows I going on stage again after the double suicide), but maybe it's a dream or something???? Because the one thing that throws me off is how close E and I are and how E refers to the "destruction" from ch 24-25.
Have you ever read Suki and the Invisible Peacock? Yes, it's a children's story but I remember reading it when I was little and finding it very emotional, even to this day. You can feel the pain of the peacock and you do hear stories about how dangerous and volatile they can be, but that's a human sentiment, and it is being imposed on a beast who is not expected to react humanly towards mistreatment by those same humans, in the first place. So, to tell you the truth, that's why I don't believe it would be 'funny' to think of that happening in real life. Especially since, as KyoZaNa (even though I don't agree with them very often, I do like how they explained this particular story) said in the favourite posts up at the very top, the peacock was thrown into the same room as the corpses of P's family and started eating them to survive. Once he had eaten them he would most likely turn on the remaining human in the room, even though he was living, to do the same, don't you think...?
You brought up the point about P and E being the beginning and end of PRIDE, so you should have also noticed how I is at the centre of it...? So everything turns on I's actions and behaviours. He is the 'mastermind', in other words. That, along with the fact that I was sometimes referred to in almost inhuman terms, as well, plus the fact that E seemed really young and innocent in the epilogue AND that by the time E was introduced at the beginning of the manga he and I already seemed to know each other really well, makes me think the epilogue was actually the very beginning of the manga. So, more of a denouement than anything else, really. Explaining how I and E met and got the ball rolling so to speak. From the beginning both I and E accepted that in order to 'heal' P, E would have to destroy himself. Given that that's the same thing that I had, apparently, already done, as well. R and D also end up talking about something similar in the last chapter. More along the lines of completion, destruction and renewal, yes, however that still fits in with the original theme of the story.
One last point, about the 'twinsies' thing. Being exactly the same but different also happens in real life. Ever heard of mirror twins? They occur naturally when an egg divides into two after the amniotic sac has formed around the egg. So, often, while one twin is left-handed the other will be right-handed and so on and so on.
I did like how you put this all together, though. It gelled all the disorganized and incoherent thoughts I was having about this manga previously into one long, seamless contiguous link. So, THANKS. :)
That's why I don't understand why someone downvoted your comment? Er?
I'm not quite sure, but my take is that "I" primed "E" for his "descent to humanity". So "E" percieved "I's" take on love as "a weapon of sweet destruction" - that was like the seed that bloomed the moment "P" entered that void.
For whichever reason, "I" not only knew that was "E" was the ideal "P" was looking for, he also knew how to ignite them both.
Otherwise "E" might have felt disturbed by "P's" presence, but he wouldn't have followed that path to this end.
Wow this explanation is amazing, I for sure knew I was going to be hella confused but this saved me to some extent. Also everyone's replies in the thread are really great too but I'm still hella confused LOL
So to anyone who is confused about the suicide/ending, I'll give my personal interpretation as to the motives for P and E's suicide...
Basically, P and E (haha did anyone else notice they are the beginning and end of PRIDE?) are really moody and artist-depressed for most of their lives previous to when this whole crazy series starts.
In chapters 24 & 25, when we get to hear a lot of the thoughts of P and E we also get hints (they tell us clearly, but it's a bit buried under all the reflection-y stuff) as to their motives for their suicide in ch 26. P and E said they were both solitary and striving for perfection (okay, E was already perfection) before their 'fateful encounter' with each other, when they find their "mirror image." They realize they are basically 'the same.' In different ways (?). P is the sole survivor of a peacock-attack (legit this seems like the funniest thing if it was irl), which leaves him scarred for life seeing visions of this beautiful bird-man who also has serious killing-intent. E is a weird alien who is like just too good at dancing to be a human, and he's already attained enlightenment, he just lacks emotion and human-ness in his art.
Once they get involved with each other, P and E realize they are twinsies, and this shit goes down. For E, meeting/'becoming one' with P has pulled him back into the realm of human-ness from his former perfection/alien-ness. He says in ch 25 that during the bird performance, P had entered E's own perfect realm of absolute existence, completing him and breaking him at the same time. For P, having E has basically meant that he is DONE in his pursuit for the bird-man and the perfect magnum opus. His vision of the bird-man that he is haunted by but at the same time pursues obsessively is literally breaking apart in the frame because he realizes he doesn't need that 'shadow' anymore with his perfect work in front of him.
I think the words "completing and destroying at the same time" really capture what these two are trying to say. Their own work/art/solitude had made them so elevated, so famed, so perfect when they were alone, but now that they have found each other and 'completed' each other, what had made them what they were before had to be destroyed as well. P says in ch 24 "we are becoming ordinary for the first time," and this, I think, is a really important point. From the very beginning P and E both were described/presented as two people 'beyond humanity' and also 'beyond the sentimentality of humanity.' This is easier to see in E, since he's a dancer, and expressing emotions is a pretty important part of dancing; he's hella famous and a friggin dancing god so everyone ignores how 'alien' he is. E is like a marble sculpture in the beginning, perfectly proportioned and beautiful in every way but still somehow eerie and inhuman. In 24/25, we see that he has learned 'warmth' and 'desire' as well as 'happiness,' all emotions he could not feel/express before. Same for P, but it's harder to see it in him. The only noticeable thing is when he realized he loved 'I' before he met E and attained perfection/was destroyed.
And on top of all this, the fleeting moments/days/weeks (we really have no grasp of how the timeline works once P and E meet) are described as 'a dream.' I mean, the dream part is sorta self-explanatory: dreams don't last forever, and they are happiest in their dream (Inception anyone). At the end of 25 E, at least, decides he wants to destroy his physical body before the happiest 'dream' comes to an end. P decides to join him in 26. Ultimately, what has kept each of their persons together has been destroyed, and they have no other reason to live.
THE END (but not before P lets 'I' know he loved him and realized this before he died when he attained his 'humanity')
I hope this was not too boring and sorta useful?